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FROM    THE   LIBRARY    OF 
REV.    LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON.   D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED    BY    HIM    TO 

THE    LIBRARY    OF 

PRINCETON   THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY 


Section  37{?0 


The  Bryant  Homestead-Book. 


TH]-:     ('IEILD. 

Years  change  thee  not.     Upon  yon  hill 
The  tall  old  maples,  verdant  still, 
Yet  tell,  in  grandeur  of  decay, 

II<»\\   swift  the  years  have  passed  away, 
Since  iirst,  a  <-hil<l,  and  half  afraid? 

1  wandered  in  the  forest  shade 

The  Rivulet 


THE     S^GrE. 

True — time  will  seam  and  blanch  my  brow — 

Well  —I  shall  sit  with  aged  men, 
And  my  good  glass  will  tell  me  how 

A  grizzly  beard  becomes  me  then. 

The  Laps*  of  Time. 


Like  this  kindly  season  may  life's  decline  come  o'er  me ; 

Pasl  i-  manhood's  summer,  the  frosty  months  are  here  ; 
Yd  he  genial  airs  and  a  pleasant  sunshine  left  me, 

Leaf,  and  fruit,  and  blossom,  to  mark  the  closing  year. 

The  Third  of  November,  1861. 


A  terror  more  ennobling  than  alarming, 
An  awe  exalting  and  a  grandeur  charming. 

J'itraj//ir\t*6  of  B<  hut 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://archive.org/details/homesteadbOObrya 


C*,.v»>  /kI^/<  s  «>^ ^  «  <"  ^    /  rt^. 


,A 


n^r  4 


THE 


Bryant  Homestead-Book 


THE     IDLE     SCHOLAR 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 
G.     P.     PUTNAM    &    SON 

18  70 


Entered  according  to  A.o1  of  Con-Tress,  in  the  year 
By  JULIA   HATFIELD, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  cf  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the  Eastern 
•  Districl  of  New  York. 


A.LVOED,    I'  B  I  N  I  i:  U . 


PUBLISHERS     NOTICE. 


In  a  volume  intended  to  do  honor  to  our  Veteran  Poet, 
and  to  gratify  his  hosts  of  friends  and  admirers  with  sketches 
of  his  home-life  in  connection  with  themes  from  his  works. 
anv  publisher  might  take  pride  in  placing  his  imprint. 
For  the  plan,  the  matter,  and  the  manner  of  this  work,  we 
cannot  claim  credit,  as  they  belong  alone  to  its  author : 
our  responsibility  being  limited  to  that  of  our  own  voca- 
tion. 


PREFACE. 


The  Bryant  Life-Studies  are  the  results  of  careful  contemplation 
of  the  noble  subject,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  in  his  twofold  phases 
as  the  poet  and  as  the  journalist.  The  poet  exists  above,  the  journalist 
upon    the    scene    of  daily    routine-life ;    and    both    constitute   the    Man. 

The  Homestead- Book  is  but  a  record  of  the  outlines,  and  is  ne- 
cessarily  incomplete. 

At  the  first,  the  studies  were  more  philosophical.  The  author  con- 
templated primal  American  Nature,  a  Nature  leaving  its  impress 
on  the  age.  Bryant  is  as  "many-sided  "  as  Goethe.  lie  is  as 
severe    a  study. 

In  our  language,  maintaining  its  purity  of  words  and  idiom,  he 
is  Avhat  Goethe  was  to  the  German.  In  other  respects  he  differs 
from  Goethe  ;  again  he  resembles  him.  Literature  owes  incalculable 
debts    to    both. 

The  purpose  lias  been  to  paint  and  delineate,  rather  than  to  demon- 
strate ;  to  show  the  great  poet-editor  as  the  Man  that  lie  is,  rather 
than  to  be  his  eulogist  or  his  advocate.  The  task  has  been  one  of 
love,  and  therefore  all  the  lighter.  If  its  fidelity  shall  appear,  and 
Bryant  shall  be  found  depicted  as  he  is  and  has  been,  the  author, 
more    than    any    other,    will    be    abundantly   gratified. 


PEE  F  A  C  E 


The  Bbtaxt  Life-Studies  are  the  results  of  careful  contemplation 
of  the  noble  subject,  William  Cfllex  Betaxt,  in  his  twofold  phases 
as  the  poet  and  as  the  journalist.  The  poet  exists  above,  the  journalist 
upon    the    scene    of  daily    routine-life  ;    and    both    constitute    the    Man. 

The  Homestead- Book  is  but  a  record  of  the  outlines,  and  is  ne- 
cessarily  incomplete. 

At  the  first,  the  studies  were  more  philosophical.  The  author  con- 
templated primal  American  Nature,  a  Nature  leaving  its  impress 
on  the  age.  Betaxt  is  as  '"many-sided"  as  Goethe.  lie  is  as 
severe    a  study. 

In  our  language,  maintaining  its  purity  of  words  and  idiom,  he 
is  what  Goethe  was  to  the  German.  In  other  respects  he  differs 
from  Goethe  :  again  he  resembles  him.  Literature  owes  incalculable 
debts    to    both. 

The  purpose  has  been  to  paint  and  delineate,  rather  than  to  demon- 
strate;  to  show  the  great  poet-editor  as  the  Man  that  he  is,  rather 
than  to  be  his  eulogist  or  his  advocate.  The  task  has  been  one  of 
love,  and  therefore  all  the  lighter.  If  its  fidelity  shall  appear,  and 
Betaxt  shall  be  found  depicted  as  he  is  and  has  been,  the  author, 
more    than    any    other,    will    be    abundantly   gratified. 


CONTENTS 


Book. 

I.  Introductory. 
II.  Homesteads. 

III.  Interior  Life. 

IV.  Mosaics  :    The  Old. 
V.   Mosaics  :    The  New. 

VI.   Arborescence. 
VII.   Reunion. 
VIII.  Clouds  and  Shadows. 
IX.   City  by  the  iSea. 


Poems. 

Entrance  of  a  Wood. 

The  Mountain  -Wind  Song. 

The  Old  Man's  Counsel. 

The  Great  Tomb  of  Man. 

Winds  and  Wanes  :    The  Sea. 

The  Forest  Hymn. 

The  Prairies:    The  Ancient  Oak. 

The  Tides  —  Cedar  mere 

Song  of  the  Sower:    Poetry  and  Com. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Latest  Life- Portrait  of  Bryant  the  Poet Photograph Sarony 

Life-Caricature  of  Bryant  the  Journalist Etching Nast. 

ON    WOOD. 
Brawn  by  Hows — Engraved  by  Linton. 

Entrance  of  the  Homestead  "Wood 13 

Woodland-Path,  east  side  of  the  Homestead 29 

General  View  of  the  Homestead 40 

Still- water  View  on  the  Premises 59 

Triumphal  Emigration  of  the  Doctor's  old  Office 7  7 

The  Poet's  Spring 88 

Site  of  the  Old  School-House — Elms — Maples 93 

View  of  the  New  School-House 108 

The  Rivulet — as  it  flows  by  the  Homestead 117 

The  Rivulet — as  it  enters  the  Wood 130 

Hemlock  Bocage U7 

Blackberry  Blossoms 152 

The  Old  Orchard 161 

Roots  of  the  Ancient  Oak 172 

Ravine — The  Joiinno  Brook 189 

Floral  Tribute— Birth-Month  Flower 195 

Last  Look  at  the  Hills  of  Cummington — Deer  Hill 20-4 

The  '•  E.  P."  Pen  and  Inkstand 224 


Dual  Covers Modelled  by  Karl  Muller. 


BOOK     I. 

INTRODUCTORY 


THE  DRUID  AND  THE  BOOK. 


=2  EIRLOOMS  have  their  value.  Heir- 
looms are  defined  to  be  furniture  in- 
herited with  a  freehold  estate.  This 
book  is  intended  to  be  an  heirloom 
which  an  idle  posterity  will  inherit 
along  with  the  homestead  of  the  poet  whose  name  is 
associated  with  the  spot  to  which  the  book  relates. 

The  past  teaches  us  that  it  is  dangerous  to  write  of 
poets'  homesteads.  Attention  once  attracted  to  them, 
they  become  the  cynosure  of  speculation,  and  the  target 
of  pseudo-improvement.  Ponder  the  fate  of  Pope  and 
Shexstone.  Each  possessor  for  the  time  being,  regard- 
ing himself  a  man  of  taste,  jealous  of  his  maniere  d'etre, 
ambitious  to  add  his  ideal  or  conception  to  that  of  the 


2  [N'TRODUCTO  R  Y  . 

poet— finally  the  Bhrine  becomes  overburdened  with 
countless  counterfeit  ornamentations  of  doubtful  taste, 
or  -till  more  doubtful  meaning,  till  the  original  home- 
stead of  the  poet  is  nowhere  to  be  recognized;  sunken 
under  a  load  of  meretricious  ornamentation. 

Now,  as  we  ardently  desire  this  homestead  ever  to 
remain  as  it  is, — with  the  poet's  hand  laid  upon  it, — we 
must  put  it  under  ban  ere  we  describe  it.  Both  bless- 
ings and  curses  descend  as  heirlooms.  Curses  have  their 
negative  weight,  or  ought  to  have,  as  restraining  influ- 
ences. Bans  usually  come  down  to  us  from  the  past, 
embalmed  in  vile  doggerel.  The  worse  the  doggerel, 
the  better  the  ban.  In  a  polished  age,  such  as  ours,* 
it  requires  the  rude,  the  brusque,  the  primeval,  to  arrest 
attention  ! 

"  The  Poet's  Homestead,"  and  "  The  Poet's  Tree,"+ 
under  1  »an  a.m.  5629;  a.  i>.  1869. 

Curse  on  the  hand  that  strikes  The  Tree! 

The  primal  curse  his  heirloom  be : — 

On  him  a  thousandfold  shall  fall 

Who  dares  "  improve"  this  Homestead  Hall  ! 

Somewhat  enigmatical  perhaps;  but  it  is  for  pos- 
terity to  contemplate.      When    idlers    of   the    present 

Query.— Will  posterity  regard  us  us  polished  or  primeval?  (See 
climax  of  the  poem,  The  Planting  of  the  Apple-Tree.)  Butasthisia  not 
the  Posterity  Edition,  wo  must,  not  now  .stop  to  speculate  on  how  we  may 
be  regarded!  We  might  get  lost  in  the  qnagmire  of  the  historico-philo- 
sophic,  and  lose  the  thread  of  the  Homestead  Book. 

See  Bk.  V  I..  Arboresoenoe, 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

are  in  the  Great  All-Tomb,  our  ban  will  assert  its 
potency.  Heirlooms  carry  the  clue  of  the  antique.  Our 
heirloom  carries  the  clue  of  the  primal  curse ;  if  any- 
one knows  what  it  is.  Shakspeare's  curse  saved  his 
hones  from  beins;  resurrectionized  ere  their  time,  and 
if  an  idle  curse  can  save  the  Bryaxt  Homestead  the 
fate  of  Pope  and  Shenstoise's,  Ave  will  e'en  "  try  -what 
virtue  there  is  in  stones.'1 

We  purpose  here  to  give  some  account  of  the  home- 
stead of  the  family  of  William  Cullex  Bryant,  in 
Cummin^ton,  anions  the  highlands  of  the  western  part 
of  Massachusetts,  between  the  Connecticut  and  the 
Housatonic,  and  not  far  from  the  source  of  the  north 
branch  of  the  Westheld  Kiver.  To  those  to  whom  the 
situation  may  be  a  myth,  we  would  say  that  Cumming- 
ton  is  a  township  in  the  county  of  Hampshire,  about 
twenty  miles  northwest  of  Northampton,  where  the 
great  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  has  recently 
taken  place,  when  the  " truth  seekers"  overhauled  the 
California  Skull,  and  learnedly  prated  "of  life  tens  of 
thousands  of  years  a^o."  All  of  which  is  interesting  to 
the  present  as  well  as  to  posterity. 

Have  patience  with  an  idle,  loitering  guide,  for  there 
is  no  necessity  of  haste,  and  we  will  eventually  show 
you  the  spot  where,  November  3d,  1794,  was  born  the 
now  silver-haired  Veteran  of  Cummington  :  ay,  the  very 
cockloft  where  he  and  his  once  little  brothers  and  sisters 
played  bo-peep  among  the  relics  and  cast-off  spinning 


4  I  XT  H()  DD  OTOR  V. 

wheels  of  revolutionary  times,  on  rainy  days  when  they 
could  not  go  out  to  "build  cascades  "and  "tiny  bridges" 
by  th<  Rivulets  brink.  Meanwhile  we  will  treat  our- 
Belves  and  idle  Posterity  fco  the  feme  of   writing    our 

name  on  the  topmost  window  of  the  cockloft,  before 
the  ubiquitous  lions,  with  John  Smith  in  train,  begin  to 
arrive  and  appropriate  every  conspicuous  nook.  John 
Smith  lias  liis  name  mitten  on  high  in  the  Shakspeare 
House, — that  is  glory  enough  for  one  man.  Some  say 
there  is  more  than  one  John  Smith  in  the  world,  but 
that  is  probably  a  mistake. 

For  certain  reasons  that  cockloft  must  be  secured. 
We  will  explain  in  due  time.  Never  was  a  homestead 
cockloft  in  such  demand  ! 


After  the  manner  of  the  ancients : 

"The  town  and  the  country  are  now  two  separate  worlds,  each 
knowing  but  little  about  the  other." — Atlantic  Monthly. 

lie  who  can  open  and  close  this  Look  understands 
the  enigma  of  life,  lie  needs  not  to  read.  The  book 
is  not  for  him.  He  lias  conned  his  lesson.  He  has  out- 
grown his  Text-Buck*  Let  him  pass  it  on  to  the  next 
generation. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  Magic  Book.  It 
could  be  read  in  fcwo  ways.  Artists  sometimes  paint 
pictures  which  Look  very  differently  according  at  which 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

angle  of  vision  one  views  them.  The  right  side  pre- 
sents one  phase.  Stand  at  the  left  you  have  another 
aspect  entirely.  Stand  in  front  and  you  view  a  third  ! 
This  third  is  the  chef  d'cewore.  It  is  made  up  of  the 
combined  effect  of  both  others  :  yet  it  is  nought  but 
the  meeting  of  the  undercurrents.  Nought,  but  demi- 
tones.  But  we  were  speaking  of  the  Magic  Book.  Some 
could  open  the  first  cover,  but  could  not  shut  the  last ; 
some  could  open  the  last  cover,  but  could  not  shut  the 
first. 

A  witch  of  a  book,  that. 

THE    VESTIBULE    OF    THE    FORESTS. 
One  of  the  earlier  poems  of  The  Poet  of  the  Forests,  or, 

ScENARIUM    OF    AN    Old    FAMILIAR    PoEM. 


Refrain  of  The  Shadow-Boy.* 

"Tis  pleasant  in  the  joyous  spring,  the  forest  bowers  to  tread, 
Where  the  shadows  of  the  living  leaves  dance  lightly  o'er  the 

dead, 
And  ever  as  we  wander  on,  gleams  forth  some  beauteous  thing — 
The  sparkle  of  a  bubbling  fount,  the  glancing  of  a  wing." 

Forest  Musings. — Anon. 

One  of  the  early  poems  of  Bryant,  written  a  little 
later  than  his   Thanatopsis,  is    the  Inscription  for  the 

*This  Shadow-Boy  is  a  mystery.  He  came  without  invitation,  and 
goes  whistling  and  carolling  through  the  forests  as  if  he  were  at  home. — 
Quaint  wight. 


6  INTRODUCTO R Y. 

Entra/na  of  a  Wood*  One  of  the  illustrations  of  this 
volume  represents  the  Entrance  of  a  Wood,  a  passage 
between  noble  trees  into  the  verdurous  shadow  of  a 
forest.  To  the  south  of  the  dwelling-house  lies  a  fine 
old  wood,  entered  by  a  broad  wood-path,  which  we  may 
suppose  to  have  suggested  the  verses  in  question.  Here 
on  entering  you  find  yourself  among  tall  and  aged 
maple-,  the  shaggy  rinds  of  which  are  pierced  with 
every  returning  spring  to  yield  sap  for  the  "sugar- 
camp"  as  it  is  called;  the  canoe-birch,  rising  like  a 
snow-white  column  ;  the  lofty  ash,  Btraight  and  slender  ; 
the  red  maple,  ruddy  in  spring  with  a  profusion  of  little 
blossoms  ;  the  black  cherry,  which  here  grows  to  a  mag- 
nificent size,  the  hemlock  with  a  greater  breadth  of 
branches  than  any  other  tree,  and  vieing  in  dimensions 
with  the  cedar  of  Lebanon;  the  bird  cherry,  with  its 
slender  shaft  of  almost  sooty  hue  ;  the  red  birch,  its  bark 
hanging  in  glossy  shreds ;  an  occasional  gigantic  Linden 
and  poplar  of  humbler  size,  and  a  multitude  of  stately 
1  iceches,  which  ] tredominate  perhaps  over  all  the  resi  in 
number.  Here  in  early  spring  the  ground  is  strewn 
with  yellow  violets,  looking  like  spangles  of  sunshine, 
and  a  little  later  the  Erythronium  (Dog's-tooth  Violet, 
Adder-lily,  Adder-tongue,  the  Ids  cU  SoleU  of  the 
French)  opens  its  drooping  bells  of  a  golden  color  and 
emits  it-  delicate  bui  faint  perfume. 

The  foresl   door  is  thickly  carpeted  with  the  dead 
leaves    of   the    lasl    season,  and    irregular  with    mossy 


I  N  T  R  0  I)  D  C  T  0  RY.  7 

knolls,  thrown  up  by  the  uprooting  of  trees  which  the 
wind  lias  levelled.  Ah,  idlers  made  a  quaint  mistake 
in  childhood.  We  thought  those  mossy  knolls  were 
mimic  "mounds,"  the  graves  of  Indians,  and  could  never 

1  >e  tempted  to  tread  upon  them.  We  had  not  then  read 
(tale,  but  we  had  read  Bryaxt,  who,  in  his  earlier 
poems,  inculcates  a  deep  veneration  for  the  bone-  i  >f 
"  disinterred  warriors.'*  We  will  tell  our  Indian  story 
when  we  come  to  the  Forest,  We  are  now  merely 
entering  the  Vestil  rale. 

Here  and  there  you  see  one  of  these  aged  trees  over- 
thrown, the  trunk  of  which  leads  "  a  causey  rude  from 
knoll  to  knoll,"  and  the  roots  of  which  are  seen, 

';  With  all  their  earth  upon  them,  twisting  high." 

Two  or  three  little  rills  traverse  the  grove,  issuing 
from  springs  within  its  border,  and 

'•Well  softly  forth,  and  wandering  steep  the  root- 
Of  half  the  mighty  forest.'* 

TWO     GEXERATIOX-. 

"Twice  nnto  spring  has  time's  stern  winter  glowed. 
Twice  nature  blossomed  from  the  seeds  art  sowed." 

><  II1LLEE. 

Bryant,  like  Goethe,  draws  two  generations  of  read- 
ers. He  takes  us  by  the  hand  and  leads  us  to  the 
Entrance  to  the  Wood  :  not  the  "  Sombre  Wood"  of  the 
father  old  of  Tuscan  song — tor  whom  we  have  a  thought 
to  spare  ere  our  nine  Sibylline  books  clos< — but    our 


[NTROD  0  ("I'u  R  V. 

own  fresh  forest  of  The  Ni:\\  World.  Not  the  mo- 
notonously redundant  Equatorial  plain,  bul  the  mutative 

antithetical  ever-varying  forest  of  the  North.  Our  poet 
is  not  a  myth  of  The  Old  Would  Plutonian  shades, 
but  a  vital  Antdti.s  of  the  present  hour,  who  gathers 
strength  and  inspiration  from  contact  with  Tin-;  Great 
Earth-Mother. 

••  And  till,  from  the  earth,  borne  and  stilled  at  length 
The  earth  that  he  touches  still  gilts  him  with  strength." 

Verily — "  One  of  the  Ancients  in  the  Morning  of 
our  Times,"  Our  Druid-priest,  who  instils  into  us 
veneration  for  the  forces  of  nature.  (We  could  tell  a 
long  story  about  this,  but  our  stingy  publisher  has  cut 
down  the  paper  rations;  so  we  will  save  our  story  for 
idle  posterity.) 

Life-worshippers  !  ye,  who  learned  Thanatopsis  and 
Green  Rive r  in  childhood. 

When,  tutored  first  by  square  and  rule 

We  learned  poetic  feet  at  school, 

And  conned  the  task  we  ne'er  forget — 

Tm:  Poet's  Hand  is  o'eb  us  yet! 
(For  shirk  the  drudge  of  learning  as  we  will — 
"The  Six  of  Homes  smiles  upon  us  still!")* 

A    DRUIDICAL    PAGE, 

All    ye  idle    scholars  who   have    mislaid    your  old 
LEMPRIERE,     and    forgotten    what    a     Druid     is, — listen! 
*  See  climax,  Bk.  IX. 


I  X  T  R  0 DUCTO R Y .  9 

They  look  very  much  like  our  Frontispiece  surrounded 
by  forest  scenarium  : — but  you  must  n't  tell. 

Druid.e. — Ministers  of  religion  among  the  ancient 
Gauls  and  Britons.  They  were  held  in  the  highest 
veneration  by  the  people.  They  were  intrusted  with 
the  education  of  youth,  and  all  religious  ceremonies, 
festivals,  and  sacrifices,  were  under  their  peculiar  care. 
They  taught  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  and 
believed  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  [The  doc- 
trine of  Soul-Progression,  probably  \  the  advancement 
from  initial  spheres  to  more  exalted  planes  or  vice  versa, 
according  to  progressive  or  retrospective  development 
during  the  ordeal  of  dual  human  apprenticeship  ?] 
Their  name  is  derived  from  the  Greek  word  bpvg,  an 
oah,  because  the  woods  and  solitary  retreats  were  the 
places  of  their  residence.  And  Goodrich,  in  his  Uni- 
versal History,  says : — "  The  Druids  appear  to  have 
been  the  priests  among  the  Celts  of  Gaul,  Spain,  Ireland, 
and  Britain.  They  were  the  instructors  of  the  young, 
to  whom  they  taught  legendary  and  mystical  lore,  in 
the  form  of  poetry.  Some  of  them  were  professed  bards." 
Certainly- — we  know  very  well  our  Minstrel  is  a  de- 
scendant of  The  Celtic  Druids.  The  root  name  Bri 
(bright  or  shining),  embraces  the  Scotch  Bryaxts,  the 
Irish  O'Briaxs,  and  the  French  Chateaubriaxds.  Celts 
of  Gaul,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  England. 

Bryant's  poems,  many  of  them  at  least,  are   sugges- 
tive of  more  than  the  subject-matter.      We  know  that 


Id  INTRODUCTORY. 

in  reading  them  and  musing  on  them— for  thought 
engenders  thought, — and  he  gives  as  "permission  to 
think '." — thai  like  the  great  firmament,  "o'erarching 
all,"  they  envelop  more  than  the  local  Bphere.  Yet 
we  venture  to  take  his  Homestead,  consecrated  by 
various  tender  associations,  and  regard  it  as  a  New 
World  shrine.  We  have  few  thought-shrines  as  yet 
Our  country  is  new.  We  are  a  New  Race.  Our 
Continental  Mound  is  triangular.  The  Mound  Build- 
eb,  the  Red-Man,  and  the  Pale-Face!  In  speaking 
of  the  American  forests,  we  are  naturally  led  to  think 
of  their  aboriginal  inhabitants.  What  is  Bryant's  treat- 
ment of  them?  He  puts  them  in  the  horizon  of  the 
vague  sublime.  He,  like  a  true  bard,  makes  of  the 
latent  poesy  of  the  primal  races  the  immortality  of  the 
present.  He  embalms  the  what  has  been  with  the 
what  is.  From  out  the  two  will  spring  the  what  will 
be.  The  Past,  the  Present,  and  the  Future  :  he  grasps 
each.  But,  we  were  speaking  of  the  Present.  Li-ten 
to  our  poet's  Apostrophe  to  the  Setting  Sun. 

[stand  upon  their  ashes:  in  thy  beam, 

The  offspring  of  another  race,  I  stand 
Beside  a  Btream  they  Loved,  this  valley  Btream; 

And  where  the  night-fires  of  thequivered  hand 
Showed  the  gray  oak  by  fits,  and  war-song  rung, 
I  teach  the  quiet  shades  the  strains  of  this  new  tongue. 

.  I    Walk  at  Sun*  t. 

Room    t<>r   the   Pioneer  Bard  of  the  Saxon    (Man  ! 


INTRODUCTORY.  1 1 

He  who  can  open  the  mystic  Book  of  Nature  heads  the 
Minstrels  of  his  line.     Nature  is  the  fount  of  poetry. 

The  Pioneer  Bard  of  the  Saxon  Clan  opens  the 
Book  of  Nature  of  the  New  World. 

Now,  in  life's  evening  son's  decline,  The  Poet  again 
takes  os  1  >y  the  hand  and  leads  ns  to  the  Entrance  of  the 
Wood :  the  Wood  of  the  "  Wide,  Wide  World  ;"  but 
Ave  know  that  the  portal  opens  from  his  own  beloved 
homestead  !  Here  is  Duality  :  the  real  and  the  symbolic, 
Mark  the  Man. 

The  Veteran  now  draws  the  generations  in  train. 
Our  Druid  is  the  chief  of  the  Young  and  the  Old.  "  Ever 
the  Old  and  the  New  :  ever  the  Xeav  and  the  Old." 

The  Old  Familiar  Poem. 

INSCRIPTION    FOB    THE    ENTKAXCE    TO    A    WOOD. 

Stranger,  if  thou  hast  learned  a  truth  which  needs 

No  school  of  long  experience,  that  the  world 

Is  full  of  guilt  and  misery,  and  hast  seen 

Enough  of  all  its  sorrows,  crimes,  and  cares, 

To  tire  thee  of  it,  enter  this  wild  wood 

And  view  the  haunts  of  Nature.     The  calm  shade 

Shall  bring  a  kindred  calm,  and  the  sweet  breeze 

That  makes  the  green  leaves  dance,  shall  waft  a  balm 

To  thy  sick  heart.     Thou  wilt  find  nothing  here 

Of  all  that  pained  thee  in  the  haunts  of  men 

And  made  thee  loathe  thy  life.     The  primal  corse 

Fell,  it  is  true,  upon  the  unsinning  earth, 

But  not  in  vengeance.     God  hath  yoked  to  guilt 

Her  pale  tormentor,  misery.     Hence  these  shades 

Are  still  the  abodes  of  gladness ;  the  thick  roof 


[2  I  N  T  RODUCTO  R  Y. 

Of  green  and  Btirring  branches  is  aliw 

And  musical  with  birds,  that  sing  and  sport 

In  wantonness  of  spirit;  while  below 

The  squirrel,  w  ith  raised  paws  and  form  erect, 

Chirps  merrily.     Throngs  of  insects  in  the  Bhade 

Try  their  thin  wings  and  dance  in  the  warm  beam 

Thai  waked  them  into  life.     Even  the  green  trees 

Partake  the  deep  contentment ;  as  they  bend 

To  the  soft  winds,  the  sun  from  the  blue  sky 

Looks  in  and  sheds  a  blessing  on  the  scene. 

Scarce  less  the  cleft-born  wild-flower  seems  to  enjoy 

Existence,  than  the  winged  plunderer 

That  sucks  it >  sweets.     The  mossy  rocks  themselves, 

And  the  old  and  ponderous  trunks  of  prostrate  trees 

That  lead  from  knoll  to  knoll,  a  causey  rude, 

Or  bridge  the  sunken  brook,  and  their  dark  roots. 

With  all  their  earth  upon  them,  twisting  high, 

Breathe  fixed  tranquillity.     The  rivulet 

Sends  forth  glad  sounds,  and  tripping  o'er  its  bed 

Of  pebbly  sands,  or  leaping  down  the  rocks, 

Seems,  with  continuous  laughter,  to  rejoice 

In  its  own  being.      Softly  tread  the  marge, 

Lest  from  her  midway  perch  thou  scare  the  wren 

That  dips  her  bill  in  water.     The  cool  wind, 

That  stirs  the  stream  in  play,  shall  come  to  thee, 

Like  one  that  loves  thee  nor  will  let  thee  pass 

Ungreeted,  and  shall  give  its  light  embrace. 

Antithesis  of  the  Equatorial  Belt. — Monotony  of  the 
Tropics. — Moan  prom  \  Norseman  in  the  Land  of  Gold. — 
Glory  of  Mutation  at  the  North. — Our  Trysting-Tree 

I  «'!    \  D     \  |     LAST'  ! 

Reader,  were  you  ever  stormed  witli  .an  arrival 
from  China,  Japan, Siam,  and  all  the  Orienl  \  When  the 
camphor-wood  trunks  came  i<>  !»<•  opened,  among  birds1 


INTRODUCTORY.  15 

tails  and  shark's  teeth,  among  Japanese  big  shoes  and 
Chinese  little  shoes,  did  yon  ever  chance  npon  a  sailor- 
boy's  portfolio  of  photographs  of  Oriental  Arbores- 
cence?  And  did  yon  stndy  the  cosniical  plane  of  that 
luscious,  pulpy,  parasitic  vegetation,  till  you  longed  for 
the  sturdy,  scraggy  trees  of  your  native  Northern  region, 
the  wrestlers  with  the  blast ;  the  defiers  of  the  tempest  ? 
Did  the  arborescence  of  the  Orient,  with  its  wealth  of 
munificence  burden  and  oppress  and  weary  you  ?  Some 
such  feeling  as  this  inspires  a  contributor  to  the  over- 
land (evidently  from  the  great  Northern  Forest-Belt 
plane),  who  laments  over  the  constant  sameness  of  the 
eternal  verdure  of  California.  Fruition  cloys.  Do 
hear  him  moan  : — 

If  but  for  a  single  day 

This  vivid,  incessant  green 
Might  vanish  quite  away, 

And  never  a  leaf  be  seen  ; 
And  woods  be  brown  and  sere, 
And  flowers  disappear : 
If  only  I  might  not  see 
Forever  the  fruit  on  the  tree, 

The  rose  on  its  stem  ! 
For  spring  is  sweet,  and  summer 
Ever  a  blythe  new-comer — 

But  one  tires  even  of  them. 

My  Cloth  of  Gold. 

MUTATION. 

Well  has  the  ])oet  sung  : — 

"Weep  not  that  the  world  changes — did  it  keep 
A  stable,  chaugeless  state,  'twere  cause  indeed  to  weep." 


1«;  INTRODUCTO  R  Y  . 

Mutation  at  the  North, 

"  Willi  his  grand  mnrch  of  seasons,  days,  and  hoars," 

completes  the  round  of  time's  incessant  change,  ami 
variety  crowns  Nature,  the  Iris  of  Northern  lands. 
These  Homestead  trees  bear  their  part  on  the  mag- 
nificence of  autumn,  when  the  maples  put  on  their 
orange  and  crimson  and  the  birch  drops  its  golden 
colored  spoils,  and 

"The  sweet  southwest,  at  play 
Flies  rustling  where  the  painted  leaves  are  strewn 
Along  the  winding  way." 

The  very  scenarium  of  the  Autwrnn  Woods;  a  poem 
containing  the  never-to-be-worn-out  simile, 

"The  mountains  that  infold 
In  their  wide  sweep  the  colored  landscape  round, 
Seem  groups  of  giant  kings,  in  purple  and  gold, 
That  guard  enchanted  ground,"' 

and  this  stanza;  one  of  the  greatest  favorites  with  the 
lovers  of  Bryant's  earlier  poems,  who  are  now  buying 
his  later  poems  for  their  children. 

The  magic  tree  is  there;  the  veritable  tree! 

"Beneath  yon  crimson  tree, 
Lover  to  Listening  maid  might  breathe  his  flame, 
Nor  mark,  within  its  roseate  canopy, 
Her  blush  of  maiden  Bhame." 

How  that   tree  will   be  sought  for ! — Our  Northern 


■- 


"  Trysting-tree." 


INTRODUCTORY.  17 

Mosses  and  lichens,  belonging  to  the  great  natural 
division  of  plants  called  Ceyptogamia.  are  a  race  of 
pigmy  vegetation,  and  of  the  lowest  and  simplest 
organic  structure.  Some  call  Cryptogamia  a  conserva- 
tive agency, — sheltering  and  preserving  seeds,  roots, 
germs,  and  embryo  plants  which  would  otherwise  perish 
— furnishing  materials  for  birds  to  build  their  nests 
with  ;  affording  a  warm  winter1  s  retreat  for  many  quad- 
rupeds and  numberless  insects — the  food  of  birds — 
which  are,  or  should  be  the  delight  of  Man  "  In  the 
Woods  "  in  Winter. 

Let  us  follow  our  Poet  while  he  glances  at  the  Pre- 
Vernal  phase  of  Nature,  in  Mid- Winter. 

THE    BARE    GROVE. 

Nor  was  I  slow  to  come 
Among  them,  when  the  clouds,  from  their  still  skirts, 
Had  shaken  down  on  earth  the  feathery  snow, 
And  all  was  white.     The  pure  keen  air  abroad, 
Albeit  it  breathed  no  scent  of  herb,  nor  heard 
Love-call  of  bird  nor  merry  hum  of  bee, 
Was  not  the  air  of  death.     Bright  mosses  crept 
Over  the  spotted  trunks,  and  the  close  buds, 
That  lay  along  the  boughs,  instinct  with  life, 
Patient,  and  waiting  the  soft  breath  of  Spring, 
Feared  not  the  piercing  spirit  of  the  Xorth. 
The  snow-bird  twittered  on  the  beechen  bough, 
And  'neath  the  hemlock,  whose  thick  branches  bent 
Beneath  its  bright  cold  burden,  and  kept  dry 
A  circle,  on  the  earth,  of  withered  leaves, 
The  partridge  found  a  shelter.     Through  the  snow 
The  rabbit  sprang  away.     The  lighter  track 
3 


L8  in  trodttotqry; 

Of  fox,  and  the  raccoon's  broad  path  were  there, 
Crossing  each  other.     From  his  hollow  tree, 
The  squirrel  was  abroad,  gathering  the  nuts 
Just  fallen,  that  asked  the  winter  eold  and  sway 
Of  winter  blast,  to  shake  them  from  their  hold. 

A.   Winter  Piece. 

Under  the  mask  of  Winter  the  Poet  detects  Spring. 
The  Poet  of  the  Forests  has  studied  the  Mosses. 

THE    EARTH    CARPET. 

"  The  hostages  of  Nature,  left  with  us  till  she  bring 
Back  from  her  southern  pilgrimage  the  fairy-footed  Spring." 

Forest  Musings. 

"  Oh,  let  us  always  grow  in  the  greenwood,  and  live  in  the 
shadows,  and  delight  in  its  voices." 

The  Mosses. 

"  When  in  the  grass  sweet  voices  talk. 
And  strains  of  tiny  music  swell 
From  every  moss-cup  of  the  rock 

And  every  nameless  blossom's  bell." 

("  The  Poet  of  the  Forests  "  studying  The  Earth 
(  Jabpet,  in  A  Summer  $  Ramble.) 

Grasses  are  regarded  as  the  universal  carpet  of  Earth  : 
hut  next  to  them  in  importance  rank  the  flbwerless  race 
of  ( 1  iiYPTOGAMiA  ;  the  secret  of  whose  vegetation  and 
reproduction  requires  the  closest  scrutiny  with  the 
microscope  to  discover.  Cryptogamous  plants  outrank 
grass  in  some  latitudes,  but  we  are  now  speaking  of  the 


INTRODUCTORY.  19 

Carpet  of  the  Woodland  on  the  Southern  fringe  of  the 
Northern  climatic  Belt.  Here  Cryptogamia  is  subordi- 
nate, but  by  no  means  to  be  overlooked  as  unessential 
to  the  beauty  and  use  of  the  vegetable  kingdom.  No 
lover  of  Nature  can  presume  to  ignore  Mosses.  Yet, 
little  people  are  usually  overlooked.  If,  for  some  innate 
quality  they  are  not  cherished  and  made  pets  of,  the  world 
of  big  people  is  wont  to  ignore  their  very  existence.  If 
you  do  not  feel  an  inclination  to  make  a  pet  of  a  child 
its  existence  to  you  is  nought :  you  never  notice  it. 
True,  it  exists,  a  tacit  intrusion  ;  but  it  lives  not  within 
the  sphere  of  your  being. 

Mosses  are  ignored  in  the  presence  of  Trees ;  or,  if 
noticed,  regarded  as  mere  accessories,  perhaps  inter- 
lopers ;    whereas,    they    are    symbolically   Pledges    of 

REJU VEXATION  \ 

"The  hostages  of  Xature,  left  with  us  till  she  bring 
Back  from  her  southern  pilgrimage  the  fairy-footed  Spring." 

Mosses  are  Child-Pets.  One  can  make  nought  else 
of  them.  Once  acquainted  with  them  we  regard  them 
with  the  'like  tender  affection  ;  to  be  caressed,  fondled, 
examined,  and  curiously  studied.  Both  Moss  and  Child 
are  Harbixgees. 

The  Child  liberated  from  books  and  winter  im- 
prisonment within  doors,  seeks  the  haunts  of  Nature. 
Too    earlv   for   either   the    vellow  violet    or  the    blue 


20  I  INTRODUCTORY. 

hepatica — yet  he  returns  not  empty-handed.  AYhat  has 
he  brought  i 

Only  Mosses  ! 

Only  Mosses  ?  Out,  vile  materialist  !  lie  lias  brought 
The  Pledge  of  Spring  :  The  promised  Florescence  of 
Summer;  The  Fruition  of  Autumn!  The  Child  has 
brought  A  Symbol  of  The  Ages. 

Has  Nature,  in  her  calm,  majestic  march 

Faltered  with  age  at  last  ?  does  the  bright  sun 

Grow  dim  in  heaven?  or,  in  their  far  blue  arch, 

Sparkle  the  crowd  of  stars,  when  day  is  done, 

Less  brightly  ?  when  the  dew-lipped  Spring  comes  on, 

Breathes  she  with  airs  less  soft,  or  scents  the  sky 

With  flowers  less  fair  than  when  her  reign  begun? 

Does  prodigal  Autumn,  to  our  age,  deny 

The  plenty  that  once  swelled  beneath  his  sober  eye  ? 

The  Ages. 

"  Oh,  there  is  not  lost 
One  of  earth's  charms :  upon  her  bosom  yet, 
After  the  flight  of  untold  centuries, 
The  freshness  of  her  far  bc^innino;  lies 
And  yet  shall  lie." 

Forest  Hymn. 

"  The  mossy  rocks  themselves, 
And  the  old  and  ponderous  trunks  of  prostrate  trees 
That  lead  from  knoll  to  knoll,  a  causey  rude, 
Or  bridge  the  sunken  brook, " 

owe  (»ne  half  their  glory  to  the  wand  of  Crtptogamia. 
An  arch  fairy,  she;  throwing  a  glamour  upon  decay; 
crowning  rocks  with  mimic  forests,  the  haunt  and  home 


INTRODUCTORY.  21 

of  myriads  of  the  insect  tribes.  One  of  the  most 
powerful  agents  of  the  vegetable  world  is  the  invisible 
spirit  of  fern  seed,  entering  where  nought  else  can  enter, 
vegetating,  concreting,  and  depositing  soil.  Cryptoga- 
mia  is  the  avant-courier  of  Arborescence;  the  pigmy 
heralds  the  giant ;  the  Moss  plants  the  Forest. 

Oh,  an  arch  Enchantress  is  Cryptogamia.  Her 
throne  is  Dual ;  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  circles  own 
her  sway,  and  hers  alone.  In  other  circles  her  power  is 
disputed  by  Florescence  and  Arborescence.  With  us, 
she  rules,  but  with  a  third  of  power,  but  yet  she  is  not 
powerless.  She  weaves  for  rocks,  "  blue-ribbed  and 
ancient  as  the  sun,"  their  hoary  mantle  of  ages ;  she 
gradually  buries  them  in  the  winding-sheet  of  Moss 
and  plants  Forests  upon  them  for  monuments.  The 
Vegetable  Kingdom  dominates  over  the  Mineral,  as  the 
Animal  Kingdom  over  the  Vegetable,  and  as  the  Men- 
tal dominates  over  the  Animal.  Cryptogamia  unites  the 
Earth-Carpet  of  the  Woodlands,  where  Grasses  scorn 
to  grow,  and  lowly,  subordinate,  now  she  fills  her  place 
beneath  the  dead  leaves,  the  emerald-green  woof  of  the 
russet  carpet  of  Autumn.  We  say  the  woods  are 
carpeted  with  dry  leaves  ;  but  we  know  that  beneath 
them  is  the  emerald-green  moss  carpet !  Beneath 
withered  hopes  lurks  the  perennial ;  the  immortal. 

Moss  sleeps  beneath  the  winter  mantle  of  the  span- 
gled snow :  in  the  moss  vistas  are  the  winter  palaces 
of  the  Little  People  of  the  Snow.     If  you  cannot  com- 


22  I  XTRODUCTORY. 

pretend  The  Moss  Would  you  are  not  likely  to  com- 
prehend The  Tree  World.  On  the  Cosmical  plane 
the  whole  Arboreal  Family  are  intimately  connected. 
Earth  is  their  vegetable  homestead. 

Homage  to  the  primal  Earth-Carpet,  O  Dusty 
Gothamite  !  Shake  off  the  dust  of  the  wicked  city  ere 
you  enter  the  vestibule  of  the  forests.  Take  off  your 
hat  not  only  to  the  lofty  trees,  the  cloud-compellers,  but 
to  the  lowly  Moss. 

O  lightly  tread  the  mossy  ground, 

The  carpet  of  woodland  shrine, 
For  in  its  mimic  groves  are  found 

The  Homesteads  of  The  Fairy  Line. 

Instead  of  parasites,  in  our  latitude  the  World  of 
Cryptogamia — Ferns,  Mosses,  Lichens,  and  Mushrooms 
{Filices,  Musci,  Hepaticce,  Algce,  Lichenes,  and  Fungi) 
contribute  those  inimitable  demitones,  those  compound- 
tints,  the  magic  play  of  light  that  tries  the  tyro  in 
painting.  Contributing  their  effect  mostly  in  compound 
tone,  while  modifying  the  local  tint,  they  can  scarcely 
yet  be  indicated  in  illustration.  But,  like  the  song  of 
birds,  they  must  be  borne  in  mind.  The  local  color  of 
old  decaying  a\<m><1  is  harmoniously  and  sometimes  al- 
most weirdly  toned  by  fungi.  The  gnome- world — rock- 
work  -owes  half  its  glory  t<>  the  infinitesimal  Musti, 
the  stone-moss,  Hepaticce,  or  Liverworts^  cover  fallen 
tn*<->  and   even   fasten   upon    those   which   are    in    their 


I  XT  RODUCT  Q  R  Y  .  23 

prime.  AJgce,  or  sea-weeds  (in  fresh- water  phrase),  tone 
the  channel  of  the  rivulet,  while  filices  or  ferns,  from 
the  towering  fruit-laden  frond  to  the  delicate  maiden- 
hair,  crowd  every  nook  of  the  homestead  land.  Save 
ferns,  the  giants  of  Cryptogamia,' the  pygmies  of  vege- 
tation must  be  imagined. 

THE    PHILOSOPHY  OF  CLIMBING. BOY-FEELIXG. 

Down  to  the  primal  carpet,  O  Dusty  Gothamite  ! 
Homage  to  Cryptogamia;  the  silent  earth-force.  Not 
only  must  lordly  man,  the  landholder,  learn  to  know  his 
trees  and  take  pride  in  their  stately  growth,  with  their 
summits  touching  the  sweeping  blasts  !  but  he  must 
even  stoop  to  recognize  his  lowly  mosses  !  Time  was 
when  they  were  not  so  far  beneath  thee.  Has  thy  soul, 
O  Heir  of  Earth,  outgrown  its  remembrance  of  the 
friendly  carpet  of  thine  infancy  {  Once  didst  thou 
clino;  to  it.  In  it  was  thv  world.  "  Moss-houses  "  were 
thy  homesteads— thou  wast  happy  !     That  in  infancy. 

In  aspiring  boyhood,  the  Earth-Carpet  shielded  thee 
from  the  direful  effects  of  many  a  rough  tumble.  Xot 
"  climb  trees  ~C  What  boy  ever  developed  himself,  his 
mind,  his  stature,  his  garments,  that  did  not  climb  trees  ? 
How  is  he  to  £ain  a  view  of  the  world  unless  he 
mounts  ?  Depend  upon  it  there  is  deep  philosophy  in 
boys  u  climbing  trees.1'  Let  them  mount ;  but  if  they 
fall? 


24  INTRODUCTORY. 

The  soft,  protecting  yielding  moss ;  the  Earth-Carpet 
catches  them ;  it  has  saved  many  a  young  genius's 
bruised  pate  from  direful  fracture.  Well  for  the  boy- 
climber  if  he  have  no  worse  tumble  in  the  wood  of  the 
world.     Keniember  the  Mosses. 

THE     BOY     AND     THE     MAN. 


Refrain — Shadow-Boy. 

u,Tis  pleasant,  as  a  gentle  boy,  in  the  sunny  morning  hours, 
To  chase  that   thief,  the  bee,  about,  that  steals  from  garden 

flowers, 
To  peep  into  the  robin's  nest,  pondering  o'er  all  I've  heard 
Of  those  dead  babes,   lost  in   the  woods,   and  covered    by  the 
bird." 

Forest  3fusings. — Ax<  > n\ 


If  "  the  boy  is  father  to  the  man  " — as  Irving  infers 
of  Goldsmith — whose  inimitable  biography  idlers  are 
too  wise  to  attempt  imitating — Bryant  the  youth, 
climbing  trees  "  to  see  what  was  to  be  seen  far  and 
wide,  and  to  peep  into  birds'  nests,  but  never  to  disturb 
the  eggs  " — is  surely  characteristic  of  him  in  later  years. 
Hen1  is  a  clue  to  some  of  the  firmament  studies  of  the 
Poet ;  to  his  masterly  perspective  ;  to  his  tender  love 
for  "animated  nature,"  surpassing  that  of  Goldsmith. 
Bbyant  the  Veteran,  in  his  Eighth  Decade  is  a  great 
climber:  whatever  height  is  t<>  be  scaled  <>n  his  Roslyn 
domain — he  is  sure  to  mount.      As  for  his  love  of  Birds 


INTRODUCTORY.  25 

— during  the  war,  when  the  smoke  and  thunder  of  the 
cannon  in  the  South  frightened  the  birds  northward, 
they  literally  flocked  to  him,  as  if  like  a  Vogelweide 
they  knew  the  poet  to  be  their  friend.  He  has  a  pe- 
culiar way  of  encouraging  them  to  trust  in  him  and  to 
feel  themselves  at  home  on  his  grounds. 

THE     FIRST     FLOWER. 

(Cryptogamia,  then  Florescence?) 

The  Alpha  of  Florescence. — Northern  Plane. — Symbolism. — 
Humility  the  harbinger  of  Munificence,  Poem. 

THE    YELLOW    VIOLET. 

When  beechen  buds  begin  to  swell, 

And  woods  the  blue-bird's  warble  know, 

The  yellow  violet's  modest  bell 

Peeps  from  the  last  year's  leaves  below. 

Ere  russet  fields  their  green  resume, 
Sweet  flower,  I  love,  in  forest  bare, 

To  meet  thee,  when  thy  faint  perfume 
Alone  is  in  the  virgin  air. 

Of  all  her  train,  the  hands  of  Spring 
First  plant  thee  in  the  watery  mould, 

And  I  have  seen  thee  blossoming 
Beside  the  snow-bank's  edges  cold. 

Thy  parent  sun,  who  bade  thee  view 
Pale  skies,  and  chilling  moisture  sip, 

Has  bathed  thee  in  his  own  bright  hue, 
And  streaked  with  jet  thy  glowing  lip. 
4 


26  I  X  TROD  D  OTO  R  V  . 

Yet  slight  thy  form,  and  low  thy  scat, 
And  earthward  bent  thy  gentle  eye 

Unapt  the  passiug  view  t<>  meet. 

When  Loftier  flowers  are  Haunting  nigh. 

Oft,  in  the  sunless  April  day. 

Thy  early  smile  has  stayed  my  walk; 

Bnt  midst  the  gorgeous  blooms  of  May, 
I  passed  thee  on  thy  humble  stalk. 

So  they,  who  climb  to  wealth,  forget 
The  friends  in  darker  fortunes  tried  ; 

I  copy  them — but  I  regret 

That  I  should  ape  the  ways  of  pride. 

And  when  again  the  genial  hour 
Awakes  the  painted  tribes  of  light, 

I'll  not  o'erlook  the  modest  flower 
That  made  the  Avoods  of  April  bright. 


CYCLE     OF     THE     SEASONS. 
• 

We  entered  the  symbolic  wood  in  leafy  June  ;  we 
glanced  at  it  in  Autumn.  We,  witli  the  poet  entered 
"the  Bare  Wood"  in  Winter,  when,  with  poetical 
prevoyance  the  bard  ante-dated  Spring,  and  lo !  the 
Yellow  Violet  appears  again — 

"ErerUBSel    fields  their  green  resume — " 

and  heralds  the  train  of  Summer.  She  clasps  the  Magic 
Chain.  Here  we  arc  -two  generations  of  us;  in  the 
Old  HOMESTEAD  Wood,  in  the  same  month  in  which 
our  poet  entered  it;  in  the  same  month  in  which  our 
artist  found  it. 


INTRODUCTORY.  27 


LOST     IN     THE     WOOD. 

Thus,  the  old  white-bearded  Druid,  who  looks  very 
much  like  our  Frontispiece  (but  you  must  n't  tell !) 
has  caused  us  to  waste  a  whole  year  of  valuable  time, 
idly  turning  the  leaves  of  his  magic  book.  A  book 
whose  imprint  is  from  the  First  Workman;  whose 
pages  are  illustrated  by  the  Grand  Artist  :  whose 
poesy  is  inexhaustible,  whose  philosophy  unfathomable, 
whose  truth  is  eternal.  A  book  conned  by  every  nation, 
land,  and  tongue. 

An  Antique  Rebus  is  The  white-bearded  Druid 
with  his  Magic  Quaternian  Book. 

How  to  get  out  of  this  magic  wood  \ — (Bad  as  the 
magic  wood  Tasso  sings  of ! ) 

Refrain — Shadow-Boy. 

This  dual  self  must  be  something  like  the  Enibozado 
or  Encapotado*  Lord  Byron  was  going  to  immortalize 
in  a  Dual  Character  \  Ours  is  a  pleasanter  personage. 
Can  it  be  that  Youth  and  Age  are  dual,  and  that 
this  is  Youth,  the  Veteran's  former  self  \ — himself  out- 
grown \  and  wall  the  shadow  follow  him  through  the 
Life-Cycle  I 

*  A  person  muffled  or  disguised. — A  negative  me. 


28  I  XT  IK)  DTJ  OTO  KY. 

"Here  weaves  some  blossomed  parasite  its  richly  blushing  woof 
About  the  wild-wood's  rugged  shafts  and  through  its  waving 

DO  C5  D 

roof, 
While  nestling  softly  in  the  moss  around  its  giant  stems. 
The  little  Btarry  flowerets  lie,  like  vegetable  gems." 

/•'on 8t  Musings, — Anon. 


"  PATH    OF  THE    FLOWERY  WOODLAND. 

Path  of  the  flowery  woodland! 

Oh  whither  dost  thou  lead  ? 
Wandering  by  grassy  orchard  grounds 

Or  "by  the  open  mead  ? 

(ioest  thou  by  nestling  cottage? 

Goest  thou  by  stately  hall, 
Where  the  broad  elm  droops,  a  leafy  dome, 

And  woodbines  flaunt  on  the  wall? 


A  silvery  brook  comes  stealing 

From  the  shadow  of  its  trees. 
Where  slender  herbs  of  the  forest  lean 
Before  the  entering  breeze. 


Along  those  pleasant  windings 

I  would  my  journey  lay, 
Where  the  shade  is  cool  ami  the  dew  of  night 

Is  not  yet  dried  away. 


I  hear  a  solemn  murmur, 

And,  listening  to  the  sound, 

I  know  the  voice  of  the  mighty  Bea, 

Beating  his  pebbly  bound. 


INTRODUCTORY 


29 


Dost  thou,  oh  path  of  the  woodland  ! 

End  where  those  waters  roar, 
Like  human  life,  on  a  trackless  beach, 

With  a  "boundless  Sea  before  ? 


WOODLAND    VISTA,    EAST   SIDE    OF   Tilt:    HOMESTEAD. 


BOOK     II. 

HOMESTEADS 


Homesteads,  their  Surroundings  and  Associations. — The 
Bryant  Homestead. — The  Genius  Loci. — Schiller's  Play- 
Principle. — The  "  Mountain- Wind  "  Song. 


HAKSPEARE'Sold  homestead— or, 
more  correctly  speaking,  the  venerable 
roof-tree  underneath  which  on  the  23d 
of  April,  1564,  was  born  the  dominant 
genius  of  the  Saxon  clan  in  the  Old 
World,  the  modern  father  of  the  humanities — has  been 
the  scene  of  thousands  of  pilgrimages,  more  especially 
since  the  charming  description  given  by  Washington  Ir- 
ving. The  ideal  of  that  great  poet  as  it  exists  in  man's 
mind,  has  always  craved  association  with  the  real — with 
something  visible  and  tangible,  and  this  is  supplied  by 
the  dwelling  which  is  his  birthplace. 

Idlers,   ever  in  search   of   the   Inutile,   have  found 
the   birthplace  of  the   Poet  of  the  Forests,  of  the  Pi- 


32  II  Oil  EST  EADS. 

oneer  Bard  of  the  Saxon  clan  in  the  New  World.  Here 
i>  a  shrine  in  utilitarian  America  in  the  morn  of  our 
poetry,  for  nationally  we  have  not  yet  numbered  our 
century,  consecrated  to  the  Unnecessary,  the  munifi- 
cently aesthetic  clement  that  Schiller  recognizes  with 
such  grateful  yet  dignified  thoughts  as  one  of  the  attri- 
butes of  der  gute  Freund,  derYATER  Konig.  About 
thi-  u play-principle n — the  exuberant,  the  redundant — 
we  have  more  to  say  anon.  We  must  now  pay  our  hom- 
age to  the  local,  to  the  genius  of  the  shrine — which  im- 
personation in  one  phase  reminds  us  of  Bykon's  Numa's 
Egeria\  in  another,  of  Shakspeaee's  Prospero's  Ariel 

THE    BRYANT    HOMESTEAD 

is  not  yet  enshrined,  as  some  one  has  said  of  Sliak- 
speare's  birthplace,  on  a  "nest  of  potteries,"  but  it  is 
yet  enshrined  in  a  nest  of  forests,  and  "  long  may  they 
wave  !" 

THE    GENIUS    LOCI. 

The  Mountain  Wind!  most  spirit)"//  thing  of  all 
The  wide  earth  knows  ;  when,  in  the  sultry  time, 

//,  stoops  ]ii in  from  his  vast  cerulean  //"ft. 
He  seems  the  breath  of  a  celestial  clirra  ! 

As  if  from  heaven's  wide-open  gates  <li<l  flow 

Health  :m<l  Refreshment  on  the  world  below.'1 

And  misanthropic  Bybon  concedes 

••<  >li  !  there  is  sweetness  in  the  mountain  atV, 
And  /{/',  that  bloated  Ease  can  never  hope  t<>  share." 


HOMESTEADS. 

You  don't  mean  to  say  you  have  found  a  thought 
upon  which  Bryant  and  Byron  chime  in  unison? 

Indeed  we  have,  and  classically  and  mythologically 
speaking  we  will  soon  find  another.     This  "  Mountain 

Wind  "  is  the  Egeria  of  our  venerable  Numa.  She 
whispers  oracles  in  his  ear:  she  whispers  poetry  t<>  his 
heart:  she  caresses  his  now  silver  hair  as  she  once  ca- 
ressed the  light-brown  locks  of  the  rosy-cheeked  boy 
who  found  that  treasure  trove  of  the  Rivulet,  that  del- 
icate waif. — "  the  scarce-rooted  water-cress." 

This  conceit  of  the  child  finding  with  evident  glee 
that  graphically  described  waif,  "the  scarce-rooted  water- 
cress," and  further  on,  in  its  proper  place,  the  aerial  con- 
ceit of  children  finding  apples  concealed  in  the  grass, 
detecting  them  by  their  diffusive  odor,  are  two  of  the 
most  masterly  of  Bryant's  minuter  pen-strokes. 

But  "The  Mountain  Wind  "  i<  a  youth,  not  a  maiden. 
Winds  are  masculine  \ 

Yes.  The  impersonation  is  cousin  to  Shakspeare's 
Arid.  A  youth  most  spiritual:  a  theme  for  sculpture. 
But  we  will  discuss  that  in  another  place. 

The  Genius  of  the  Poet  has  consecrated  his  birth- 
place ;  the  power  of  the  Journalist  has  retrieved  it. 
Here  is  the  duality  of  life.  The  shrine  of  the  Ideal  must 
ever  be  supported  by  the  judicious  props  of  the  Real. 
{Morale  of  the  Repairing  of  the  Shakspeare  House.) 
the  spot  where  was  born  the  Minstrel  of  the  "old  Pon- 
toosuck  shades." 


34  HOM  EST  E  A  DS. 

THE     POETS     BIRTHPLACE. 

Let  us  visit  it. 

Some  tour  years  since.  Bryant  purchased  his  youth- 
ful home,  which  is  uowfitted  up  for  a  summer  residence, 
— a  bona  ficU  Poet's  Retreat.  kk  Out  of  the  world,"  out 
of  the  reach  of  travellers,  out  of  the  way  of  idlers, — this 
is  a  much  titter  place  for  the  poet  to  "come  awhile  to 
wander  and  to  dream"  in,  than  Cedarrnere,  his  Roslyn 
country-seat  (or,  as  we  have  always  known  it,  "Roslyn 
Castle").  That  is  very  beautiful  and  easy  of  access,  and 
being  a  somewhat  celebrated  spot,  owing  to  the  poet's 
having  laid  his  hand  upon  it,  is  become  a  sort  of  Mecca 
to  modem  tourists.  Mde.  Ida  Pfieffer,  though  she  had 
voyaged  round  the  world,  was  not  satisfied  till  she  had 
seen  the  residence  of  Bryant.  How  much  further  would 
she  have  gone  out  of  her  way  could  she  have  found  the 
poet's  birthplace,  \ 

But  poets  sometimes  like  to  be  alone  ;  they  are 
morbid  introspectionists  absorbed  in  time-worn  associ- 
ations and  "  inner  life."  In  fine — who  does  not  want  to 
own  the  spot  where  he  was  born  \  To  feel  that  the 
breast  of  the  Great  Earth-Mother  to  which  he  clung  in 
infancy,  ere  he  could  walk  erect  and  express  his  wants 
in  Bpeech,  is  still  Ins  own,  the  alpha  and  omega  of  his 
life — the  great  sustainer  who  has  cherished  him,  the 
greal  embalmer  who  will  entomb  him.  Yes.  Every- 
body desires  to  own  Ins    birthplace.      Every    heir   of 


HOMESTEADS.  35 

earth  puts  in  his  claim  for  the  primal  home-thought 
— the  Gaia,*"*— the  Great  Earth-Mother  of  "  the  Starry 
Greek  "- — thus  rendered  by  the  German  : — 

"  Where  shall  I  grasp  thee,  infinite  nature,  where? 
Ye  breasts,  ye  fountains  of  all  life,  whereon 
Hang  heaven  and  earth,  from  which  the  blighted  soul 
Yearneth  to  draw  sweet  solace,  still  ye  roll 
Your  sweet  and  fostering  tides — where  are  ye — where? 
Ye  gush,  and  must  I  languish  in  despair  ?" 

Goethe's  Faust. — Anxi  Swaxwick's  Translation. 

Moral. — Both  the  starry  Greek  and  the  introspec- 
tional  German  regarded  Earth  not  as  the  impersonal 
aggregate  of  mineral  substances  which  we  call  earth, 
but  as  the  producing,  fostering  mother  alluded  to  by 
the  Hebrew  as  "  the  mother  of  all  things."  The  ancient 
Teutons  worshipped  earth  under  the  name  of  Esus.  The 
Earth  principle  is  the  strongest  motif  in  the  heart  of 
man. 

"  Earth's  children  cleave  to  earth." — Bryant. 

Return  we  to  the  real,  reality  must  give  the 
impulse. 

Why  did  Bryant  repurchase  his  old  homestead? 
The  venerable  roof-tree  had  passed  into  alien  hands ; 
"  The  Children  of  the  House "  had  been  dispersed ; 
the  parents  and  the  sister  mourned  in  u  The  Melancholy 

*  Gaea  ( — ae),  or  Ge  ( — es),  called  Tellus  by  the  Romans,  the  per- 
sonification of  the  Earth,  is  described  as  the  first  being  that  sprang  from 
Chaos,  and  gave  birth  to  Uranus  (Heaven"),  and  Pontus  (Sea), 

Classic  Dictionary,  William  Smith,  LL.  D. 


36  II  0  M  EST  EA  DS. 

Days"  (The  Death  <>f  the  Flowers),  were  sleeping 
quietly  in  The  Old  Grave-yard.  Why  did  the  poet  quit 
his  charming  seat  by  the  Music  of  the  Waves  to  up-build 

the  cottage  of  his  Mountain  Home  \ 

■ 

Everybody  desires  to  own  his  birthplace.  La 
BruyAre  says  : — 

"  Le  souvenir  de  la  jeunesae  est  tendre  dans  lea  viellards;  ils 
aiment  lea  lieux  oil  ils  l'ont  passee;  lea  person nes  qn'ila  out  com- 
mence de  connaitre  dans  ce  temps  leur  sunt  cheres." 

Ausox,   says  : — 

"The  view  of  the  house  where  one  was  horn — of  the  school 
where  one  was  educated,  aid  the  gay  years  of  infancy  were  passed 
— is  indifferent  to  no  man.  They  recall  so  many  images  of  past 
happiness  and  past  affections,  they  are  connected  with  so  many 
strong  or  valued  emotions,  that  there  is  hardly  any  scene  which 
one  ever  beholds  with  so  much  rapture." 

And  Irving  says, on  his  visit  to  Walter  Scott,  that 
there  was  a  wavering  allegiance  in  the  mind  of  the 
minstrel  whether  to  repair  the  old  Smallholm  Grange  of 
k-  Sandy  Enowe  Craig" — where  lie  was  sent  in  infancy  to 
his  grandfather,  on  account  of  his  lameness,  and  where 
he  imbibed  pure  air  and  legendary  lore — or  to  rebuild 
Abbotsford. 

CHILD    PHILOSOPHY. 

"  And  old  Remembrance  twining  round  my  heart, 
Then  sing  ye  forth!     Sweet  songs  that  breathe  of  heaven, 
Tears  come!  and  earth  bath  won  her  child  again!" 

Goethe's  Fausttu — Dr.  Ansteb's  Translation, 

Child-philosophy   is  a  misnomer;  but  let   the  pro- 


HOMESTEADS.  37 

fessor  of  the  English  language  coin  a  word  expressive 
of  the  deep  philosophic  strata  underlying  the  human 
heart  from  the  days  of  childhood,  to  which  we  again 
and  again  revert  as  to  the  original  text  of  our  being, 
"  One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin." 
There  is  a  common  plane  of  earth-strata  underlying  the 
plane  of  humanity,  which  responds  with  the  electric 
vibration  of  the  nerve-thrill  of  Creation  universal.  The 
latent  meaning  of  life  is  individual  life-response  to 
cosmopolitan  life.  We  are  grateful  to  those  beings  or 
talismans  that  revive  the  pleasing  memory  of  childhood, 
that  renew  our  youth.  We  are  grateful  to  the  child 
who  is  amused  with  the  toys  and  means  of  instruction 
that  amused  us  in  childhood.  We  are  grateful  in  the 
brick  and  mortar  of  Gotham  to  the  being  who  recalls 
"  the  long  past, — those  happy  days  of  yore  when  we 
played  along  the  brookside.'1  Ay,  every  one  has 
"  played  along  the  brookside ;"  every  one  has  been  idle 
in  his  day,  no  matter  how  industrious  he  is  now. 
Every  one  has  been  a  child.  The  man  carries  with  him 
the  Phantom  of  his  childhood.  "  The  Shadow-Boy " 
will  dog  his  footsteps.  What  though  we  outgrow  the 
little  shoes  of  the  soul  \  What  though  we  only  note 
soul-progression  by  the  fact  that  we  cannot  put  the 
AVhat  Is  back  into  the  shoes  of  the  What  Has  Been  '? 
Must  we  despise  these  little  shoes  ?  Memory,  careful 
nurse,  cherishes  them.  When  thou  art  a  great  lord  and 
oppressed   with    wretchedness,  Memory,  careful    nurse, 


38  HOMESTEADS. 

may  bring  out  these  little  shoes  and  make  thee  laugh 
a  genial,  human  laugh. 

On  the  banks  of  The  Homestead  ffiwdet,  and  in  its 

pellucid  depths,  wanders  and  floats  the  impersonation 
of  our  now  Venerable  Poet's  Childhood's  Dreams  ! 
That  Brooklet    is   haunted.       We  will   come  to  it 

anon. 

CUMMINGTOW     SCENARIUM. HOMESTEAD     LOCALITIES. 

To  obtain  a  view  of  the  homestead,  one  should 
ascend  the  hill  lying  west  of  it  from  the  side  of  which 
the  greater  part  can  he  overlooked.  You  will  see  below 
you  the  old  mansion — standing  beside  the  rivulet  cele- 
brated  in  the  poet's  song — with  an  avenue  of  fine  sugar- 
maples  leading  from  it  to  the  north  and  in  another 
direction  to  the  southeast.  To  the  west  and  north  of 
the  house,  on  the  edge  of  the  rivulet,  there  stands  a 
semicircle  of  evergreens,  spruce,  pine,  and  hemlock-fir, — 
more  than  a  hundred  of  them,  which,  under  the  care  of 
Mr.  Dawes,  were  wrenched  by  the  roots  from  the  meagre 
soil  in  which  they  grew,  and  although  from  fifteen  to 
thirty  feet  in  height  were  planted  in  such  a  manner 
that  only  two  of  them  died  and  the  rest  are  growing 
finely  and  form  a  perfect  screen  against  the  Masts  of 
winter.  Out  of  this  little  wood  peeps  a  pretty  ice-house, 
which  the  trees  will  soon  overshadow  and  hide  from  the 
view.  Near  it  grows  a  Red  Oak,  the  progeny  of  an 
older  tree,  which  once  spread   its  broad  branches  over 


HOMESTEADS.  39 

the  house,  the  glory  of  the  Old  Pontoosuck  shades, 
and  which  is  celebrated  in  a  poem  by  John  Howard 
Bryant,  younger  brother  of  our  poet. 

To  the  north  of  the  house  is  the  old  apple-orchard, 
of  which  Hows  has  given  the  drawing  engraved  for  this 
book.  The  trees  were  planted  when  the  house  was 
built,  and  now,  past  bearing,  and  with  half  their  sum- 
mits dead,  they  stand,  the  ruins  of  what  they  were, 
with  their  great,  irregular,  bare  branches, — ghostly 
shapes  such  as  Dore  might  draw  to  illustrate  Dante, — 
a  study  for  the  painter  and  the  lover  of  the  pictur- 
esque, but  an  offence  to  the  eye  of  the  husbandman. 
This  orchard  many  years  since  was  the  playground  for 
the  children  of  the  family,  when  its  trees  were  in  their 
prime,  and  when  every  spring  they  were  white  with 
blossoms,  and  every  autumn  loaded  with  fruit.  Many 
of  them  have  lately  been  cut  down :  the  axe  is  laid  at 
the  roots  of  the  rest  and  they  will  soon  disapj^ear. 

The  avenue  of  trees  to  the  north  was  a  favorite  walk 
of  the  poet,  when  in  the  morning  he  went  out  to  medi- 
tate his  verses.  It  leads  to  a  pleasant  little  grove  north 
of  the  orchard.  If,  without  entering  the  grove,  you 
follow  to  the  north,  it  conducts  you  to  a  bl eak  eminence 
swept  by  every  wind  that  blows,  from  which  your  eye 
looks  down  into  the  narrow,  woody  valley  where  the 
Westfield,  itself  unseen,  flows  on  its  way  to  the  Con- 
necticut. To  the  north  stands  Deer  Hill,  shaggy  with 
woods,  overlooking  the  Westfield,  and  to  the  north  of 


4(1  *        HOMESTEADS. 

Deer  Hill,  twenty  miles  distant,  you  sec  the  blue  summit 
of  Greylock  in  Williamstown,*  at  the  northwest  corner 
of  Massachusetts.  Descending  north  from  tlie  eminence, 
the  view  from  which  over  the  neighboring  country  is 
one  of  vast  extent  and  exceedingly  fine,  you  pass  on  the 
left  a  rocky  pasture-ground  in  which  are  the  Two 
graves, — the  subject  of  one  of  Bryant's  poems.  Tiny 
are  no  longer  to  be  distinguished.  A  steep  highway 
conducts  yon  to  the  Johnno  Brook,  a  brawling  stream,  in 
a  deep,  rocky  dingle,  so  narrow  and  deep  that  into  some 
parts  of  it  the  sun  scarce  ever  shines.  The  stream 
hurries  down  a  steep  descent  to  mingle  with  the  more 
quiet  waters  of  the  Westfield.  On  the  1  tanks  of  this 
little  brook  among  the  evergreens  are  tall  birches,  red 
and  white,  that  overshadow  it;  there  is  coolness  in 
the  hottest  days  of  summer,  and  it  was  always  a  favorite 
resort  of  the  present  possessor  of  the  Homestead. 

The  road  leading  between  the  rows  of  sugar-maples 
to  the  southeast  of  the  mansion,  again  meets  and 
crosses  the  rivulet  where  a  dam  on  the  left  hand  has 
been  tin-own  across  the  little  glen,  and  the  waters 
gathered  into  a  pretty  pool  which  in  winter  supplies 
the  ice-house.  A  little  farther  on,  a  road  turning  to  the 
left  hand   leads  to  a  school-house  lately  erected,  after  a 


*  Williams  Oollege,  the  Poet's  ahna  muter,  is  situated  in  Williams- 
town,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  beautiful  Berkshire.  Under  its 
presenl  President,  Dr.  Hopkins,  with  its  able  faculty  of  professors,  it  takes 
a  high  rank  among  its  sister  institutions  of  learning. 


HOMESTEADS.  43 

very  pretty  design,  on  the  southeast  corner  of  the  Bry- 
ant farm.  From  the  door  of  the  building  the  eye 
ranges  over  an  immense  extent  of  country. 

The  mansion  itself,  which  is  so  well  represented  in 
the  designs  of  Mr.  Hows,  needs  no  more  particular  de- 
scription. The  room  which  visitors  most  inquire  after  is 
a  little  chamber  occupied  by  the  poet  when  in  his  boy- 
hood, with  a  window  looking  to  the  west,  formerly  upon 
the  rivulet  and  now  upon  the  little  grove  of  evergreens. 
Here  he  made  his  first  attempts  in  versification,  and 
turned  his  boyish  rhymes.  Over  this  is  the  cockloft  of 
which  we  have  already  spoken,  which  half  a  century 
since  was  a  place  of  deposit  for  broken-down  furniture 
and  old  hijjdi-heeled  shoes  of  the  last  century,  and  in 
rainy  days  a  play-place  for  the  children. 

That  Cockloft  again. 

"  A  play-place  for  the  children  ?" — That  is  just  what 
we  want.  When  veteran  poets  retrieve  their  home- 
steads, the  cockloft  is  sacred  to  their  second  and  third 
generation  of  readers.  We  all  of  us  have  Tuts  of  china 
and  sparkling  fragments  of  broken  glass  which  we  call 
diamonds,  and  we  want  an  unnecessary  corner  for  a 
"play-house?"  We  have  had  the  trouble  of  learning 
all  the  poet's  classic  verses  as  school-tasks,  and  he  has 
never  thanked  us  Young  America  for  even  reading  him 
— much  less  learning  him  by  rote,  as  Bryant  the 
Journalist  thanked  his  old  subscribers  for  reading  his 
old  Evening  Post  half  a  century !     We  subscribe  to 


44  HOll  EST  E  ADS 

the  Poems  of  Bryant,  the  Poet,  He  ought  to  be  as 
civil  as  hia  cousin,  the  Journalist,  and  give  us  the  cock- 
loft for  a  play-house;  if  he  docs  not  care  to  thank  his 
poetical  subscribers — in  print,  as  he  did  his  journal- 
istic ones. 

That  cockloft  belongs  to  Young  America.  All  tin1 
play-house  he  can  find  in  practical  America.  Let  us 
take  possession  of  and  improve  our  homestead. 

THE     PHILOSOPHY      OF     THE     INUTILE. 
S< -mi. lew's  "Plat    Principle"  moke    iii.lv    elaborated    and 

BROUGHT   TO    BEAB    UPON    OIK  AMERICAN    POET'S    HOMESTEAD, 
IN     MANNER    TO    ASTONISH    THE    GERMAN. 

Sometimes  the  (treat  Suabian  calls  it  by  one  term 
and  sometimes  by  another,  but  we  always  understand 
him.  The  repossession  and  re-habilitation  of  the  old 
Bryant  Homestead  is  an  expression  of  the  "play  ele- 
ment" common  alike  to  Deity  and  the  vital  master- 
piece of  his  sixth  day's  creation — imitative  humanity. 
Our  sublime  Creator  himself  did  not  stop  at  the 
necessary.  His  ideal  went  beyond  that.  lie  created 
man  with  capacity  in  a  measure  to  comprehend  this: 
He  also  placed  man  in  a  magnificent  arena,  surrounded 
1>\  elements  upon  which  to  develop  his  comparatively 
limited  thought-scope.  But  the  dual  spheres  of  mind 
and  matter  arc  boundless— matter  gives  the  key  to 
mind. 


HOMESTEADS.  45 


THE    PLAY-PRINCIPLE. 

"  It  is  true,  nature  has  provided  the  brute  animal 
with  means  beyond  the  necessary,  and  has  illumined 
the  darkness  of  the  animal  life  with  a  ray  of  freedom. 
If  the  lion  is  not  tormented  by  hunger,  nor  challenged 
to  combat  by  a  beast  of  prey,  he  spends  his  idle  strength 
in  boldly  roaring  through  the  desert,  and  displaying  his 
power  on  aimless  freaks  of  motion.  Joyously  the  insect 
swarms  in  the  sunbeam ;  nor  is  it  the  cry  of  desire  that 
we  hear  in  the  melodious  warble  of  birds.  It  is  un- 
deniable that  there  is  freedom  in  these  motions,  not 
freedom  from  want  generally,  but  from  special  sensual 
want.  The  animal  works  if  his  activity  is  stimulated 
by  want,  and  it  plays  if  its  activity  is  the  result  of  an 
inherent  excess  of  power.  Even  in  inanimate  nature 
such  a  luxuriant  profusion  of  power,  and  such  a  vague- 
ness of  determination  are  observable  which,  if  under- 
stood in  this  material  sense,  might  very  properly  be 
termed  play.  The  tree  sends  forth  innumerable  buds 
which  perish  without  ever  being  developed,  and  puts 
out  more  roots,  twigs,  and  leaves,  for  the  purpose  of 
gathering  sustenance  than  are  employed  in  preserving 
either  the  individual  or  the  species."  Nature  gives  the 
prototype  of  the  aesthetic  play-principle.  Nature  ? 
Ay,  mind  also.     The  redundant  ex-foliation  of  thought ! 


4«,  HUM  EST  BADS. 

How  many  withered  leaves  seek  mother  earth.  What 
fragile  blossoms  are  blasted  :  and  who  <'«*m  compute 
the  premature  harvest  of  immature  fruit  !  Why  this 
redundancy  of  conception — this  paucity  of  harvesl  I 
Why  must  Endeavor  ever  exceed  Fruition? 

A-k  the  God  of  Nature, — question  the  primal 
Artist — Genius  of  the  play-principle.  He  was  Creator 
— lmt  was  he  Drudge?  He  evolved  his  ideal — and 
pronounced  it  "very  good,"  and  though  that  ideal  in 
these  degenerate  day-  is  rarely  attained,  he  yet  evinces 
the  supernal  clemency  of  not  forsaking  the  work  of 
his  hands.    A  Lesson  for  Pupil  Man. 

Were  we  emanations  of  the  Divine  "play-princi- 
ple?" Apparently  there  was  no  necessity  for  the 
creation  of  man.*  Man  was  a  dual  experiment  :  an 
under-current  of  thought, — a  hybrid  of  seraph  and 
earth-worm, — a  zoophite  of  animal  and  spiritual, — an 
amphibious  compound  of  celestial   and  terrestrial, 

Man  was  an  experiment :  is  he  a  failure?  Let  the 
nobler  samples  of  humanity  answer.  We  believe  this 
pertains  to  the  realm  of  the  Historico-Philosophic. 
Idlers  only  deal  with  the  wisdom  of  folly. 

The  play-principle,  or  the  Genius  of  tin1  Inutile, 
i-  the  redundant, — the  unnecessary:  thai  which  we  can 
do  without.     The  Creator  has  made  (to  our  eyes)  very 

*  Though  SoHILLBB  says:  — 

i  fell  itn-  want,  and  therefore  irorlda  were  ma4e;" 

ami  worlds,  wejndge,  were  created  the  habitations  of  mea. 


HOMESTEADS.  47 

many  unnecessary  tilings  we  can  as  yet  find  no  use  for 
them.      We  can  live  and  die  without  them. 

"  God  might  have  made  the  earth  bring-  forth 
Enough  for  great  and  small, 
The  oak-tree  and  the  cedar-tree, 

Without  a  flower  at  all ; 
\Ve  might  have  had  enough,  enough 

For  every  want  of  ours, 
For  luxury,  medicine,  and  toil. 
And  yet  have  had  no  flowers." 

Mary  IIowitt. 

But  Hortexse  rejoins  at  the  busybody  who  ex- 
claims against  the  superfluity  of  the  bijouterie  of  her 
boudoir : — "  II  nest  pas  un  Luxe ;  il  est  une  Neces- 
saire  !"  Are  there  then  two  antagonistic  Philosophemes 
— The  Material  and  the  Inutile  \ 

VERITABLE    BEAUTIES    OF    THE    HOMESTEAD. 

One  cold-blooded  materialist  bids  us  make  much 
allowance  for  the  poet  who  sings  of  his  childhood's 
home  and  the  lover  who  prates  of  his  mistress!  We 
will.  Yet  the  Bryant  homestead  is  not  without  a 
goodly  share  of  intrinsic  as  well  as  ideal  beauty — as  our 
illustrations  show  by  the  draughtsman's  art,  and  as  the 
painting  of  the  Bryant  homestead,  by  the  same  artist, 
who  made  a  journey  to  the  poet's  birthplace  in  the 
"  leafy  month  of  June "  to  take  the  sketches  for  our 
book  (which    is   for  idle    posterity),  and    to   paint   for 


18  H  O II  E  s  T  E  ADS. 

himself,  thus  securing  color  and  atmospheric  tint,  just 
w  hat  view  or  phase  his  own  good  taste  decided  would 
-ratify  the  eye  of  the  present  public.  How  well  the 
talented  Hows,  the  lover  of  trees, — the  deudrophilist.  as 
the  French  might  call  him,-— has  fulfilled  his  mission,  his 
large  painting  testifies  with  regard  to  the  "color  depart- 
ment.'1 While  bur  illustrations,  through  the  draughts- 
man  and  cutters'  combined  aid,  present,  l>y  contour  and 
perspective,  light  and  shade  glimpses  of  moral  beauty 
which  serve  to  convince  us  the  poet  has  not  thrown 
such  an  atmosphere  of  glamour  over  his  native  -lade, 
but  that  the  various  scenes  depicted  can  be  recog- 
nizable. 

RETURN    TO    THE    HOMESTEAD    AFTER    A    CAMPAIGN    IN     THE 

world's    CRUSADE, 

There  is  one  among  Bryant's  Cummington  poems — 
such  a  gem — and  such  an  opalescent,  multiphase  gem- 
so  like  an  opal — suitable  everywhere,  that  like  the 
dame  who  knew  not  with  which  suit  she  should  wear 
her  opals,  and  concluded  to  wear  them  with  all,  we 
will  give  you  a  glimpse  of  this  choice  tiara  ckdtdaine, 
and  tell  you  where  each  several  shade  agrees. 

It  belongs  t<>  " arborescence '' — for  in  it  are  depicted 
individual  trees.  It  is  the  complement  to  Book  [L,fori1 
portrays  the  general  homestead  scenarium:  the  swelling 
hills  with  \  alleys tw  scooped  between,"  and  above  all  gives 


HOMESTEADS.  41) 

us  ear  notice  of  invisible  brawling  streams  ;  a  peculiarity 
of  the  region.  Not  sight  alone,  but  ear  was  educated. 
In  many  of  Bryant's  poems  every  sense  has  its  office. 
To  comprehend  some  of  his  poems  there  must  be  each 
sense  unfolded,  all  the  soul  matured.  But  in  few  of 
his  poems  is  the  whole  man  so  depicted.  Here  is  ;c  The 
Mountain  Wind,"  the  genius  loci,  the  attraction  to  the 
Homestead.  By  antithesis  of  escaping  "  the  city's  sti- 
fling heat,  its  horrid  sounds  and  its  polluted  air  " — he 
conveys  to  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  same  lively 
satisfaction  with  which  his  own  breast  is  thrilled. 
Rarely  do  we  find  the  poet  so  happy.  But  to  crown 
all,  he  brings  his  child — the  whilom  "  Little  Fanny  " — 
and  teaches  her  Symbolism:  wisely  judging  that  if  the 
latent  poesy  of  nature  is  intuitively  comprehended  by 
young  eyes,  the  romance  of  life  will  suggest  itself  to 
young  hearts.  So,  when  we  are  asked — as  we  not  un- 
frequently  have  been — "How  were  the  children  of 
Bryant  educated  ?'  We  always  reply,  a  By  Symbolism. 
The  poet  taught  them  to  see  with  his  eyes.17  And  we 
quote  a  certain  stanza  which  we  leave  the  reader  to  find. 
Moreover — this  poem  gets  quoted  so  much — the  opals 
are  so  suitable,  that  if,  like  the  worthy  dame's  jewels, 
they  grace  more  than  one  suit  they  are  always  welcome. 
We  will  give  the  poem  presently :  on  condition  that 
the  reader  bear  in  mind  this  motto — the  wisest  thing 
"  G.  P.  R.  Q.  U.  Y.  Z.  James  "  ever  wrote— 


5i  >  11  0  M  E  S  T  E  A  1)  S . 


ANTII  1 1  1 !  Ii<    \l.     Mol  1  0. 

"1  have  passed  much  if  ray  time  in  cities,  in  wrestling  with 
the  world  that  you  probably  have  never  known;  and  one  of  the 
effects  lias  been  to  give  the  lace  of  nature  and  all  the  beautiful 
features  it  displays,  a  glory  and  a  loveliness  in  my  eyes,  which  those 

who  have  not  been  denied  the  sight  for  months  and  year-  together, 

cannot,  I  believe,  comprehend." 

<i.  P.  K.  James. 

The  scenarium  of  the  Homestead  is  more  than 
photographed  in  the  following  poem:  it  is  crystal- 
lized. Rarely  do  Ave  find  the  poet  in  such  a  happy, 
genial  human  vein.  With  peculiar  crispness  and  vigor 
In-  sings  the  praises  of  his  native  glade — for  lias  lie 
not  come  home  from  the  dusty  thoroughfares  of  "The 
Busy  Mait  C  These  pilgrimages  to  the  Hermitage  ok 
the  Heart  arc  events.  Each  return  home  is  the  golden 
clasp  which  binds  a  cycle  of  life. 

THE  GEM  OF    THE  HOMESTEAD  POEMS. 

LINKS    ON     REVISITING    THE    COUNTRY, 


I  stand  upon  my  native  hills  again, 

Broad,  round,  and  green,  that  in  the  summer  sky 
With  garniture  of  waving  grass  and  grain. 

Orchards, and  beechen  forests,  basking  lie; 

While  deep  the  Slllllcss  <_delis  arc  scooped    hetwceli. 
Where  brawl  o'er  shallow  he. Is  the  streams  unseen. 


HOMESTEADS.  51 

A  lisping  voice  ami  glancing  eyes  are  near, 

And  ever  restless  feet  of  one,  who,  now, 
Gathers  the  blossoms  of  her  fourth  bright  year; 

There  plays  the  gladness  o'er  her  fair  young  brow, 
As  breaks  the  varied  scene  upon  her  sight, 
Upheaved  and  spread  in  verdure  and  in  light. 


For  I  have  taught  her,  with  delighted  eye, 
To  gaze  upon  the  mountains, — to  behold, 

With  deep  affection,  the  pure  ample  sky, 
And  clouds  along  its  blue  abysses  rolled, — 

To  love  the  song  of  waters,  and  to  hear 

The  melodv  of  winds  with  charmed  ear. 


Here,  I  have  'scaped  the  city's  stifling  heat, 
Its  horrid  sounds  and  its  polluted  air; 

And,  where  the  season's  milder  fervors  beat, 
And  gales,  that  sweep  the  forest  borders,  bear 

The  song  of  bird,  and  sound  of  running  stream, 

Am  come  awhile  to  wander  and  to  dream. 


Ay,  flame  thy  fiercest,  sun  !  thou  canst  not  wake, 
In  this  pure  air.  the  plague  that  walks  unseen. 

The  maize  leaf  and  the  maple  bough  but  take, 
From  thy  strong  heats,  a  deeper,  glossier  green. 

The  mountain  wind,  that  faints  not  in  thy  ray, 

Sweeps  the  blue  steams  of  pestilence  away. 


The  mountain  wind  !   most  spiritual  thing  of  all 
The  wide  earth  knows  ;  when,  in  the  sultry  time. 

He  stoops  him  from  his  vast  cerulean  hall, 
He  seems  the  breath  of  a  celestial  clime  ! 

As  if  from  heaven's  wide-open  gates  did  flow 

Health  and  refreshment  on  the  world  below. 


52  IiOMESTE  ADS. 

Where  there  is  no  Departure  there  can  be  no  Re- 
turn. Gotham  half  inspired  that  matchless  poem  by 
antitheses.  To  get  power  on  light  we  foil  it  by 
shadow.  The  poet  lias  apparently  fled  from  pestilence, 
with  his  family,  for  refuge  in  the  Old  Homestead. 

GENERAL     ASPECT     OF     THE     CUMMINGTON     REGION. 

If  the  reader  should  desire  to  know  where  Cum- 
mington  lies,  he  will  find  it  on  the  map  of  Massachusetts 
about  half  way  between -the  Connecticut  at  Northamp- 
ton and  the  Housatonic  at  Pittsfield,  and  twelve  miles 
distant  from  any  railway.  Here  a  broad  Highland  re- 
gion swells  up  between  the  valleys  bathed  by  these  two 
fine  rivers,  to  the  height  of  two  thousand  i\>ct  above  the 
level  of  the  sea:  at  the  Bryant  Homestead  it  is  comput- 
ed to  be  about  nineteen  hundred  feet.  To  the  north, 
this  elevated  region  runs  to  the  Green  Mountains  of 
Vermont;  to  the  south,  it  extends  into  Connecticut, 
where  its  hills  gradually  subside  as  they  approach  the 
Long  Island  Sound.  In  Massachusetts,  the  western 
half  of  these  Highlands,  including  the  summit,  lies  in 
the  count}'  of  Berkshire,  and  the  eastern  half  in  the 
counties  of  Hampden,  Hampshire,  and  Franklin.  Cum- 
mington  lies  a  little  easl  of  the  summit  ridge,  and  from 
its  eminences  may  be  descried  the  summits  of  the  hills 
which  form  the  eastern  border  of  the  beautiful  valley 
of  the  ( Jonnecticut. 


HOMESTEADS.  53 

The  arborescence  of  tliis  region  is  peculiar :  tlie  oaks 
and  pines  of  the  lower  part  of  the  State  are  scarcely 
found  here,  and  in  their  stead  are  seen  the  sugar-maple, 
the  birch,  the  red  birch,  and  the  hemlock.  The  rocky 
ledges  and  precipices  are  for  the  most  part  of  mica-slate 
and  hornblende,  and  the  soil  is  a  tenacious  loam  which 
does  not  easily  yield  to  the  rains,  or  else  it  would  l>e 
carried  off  by  them,  and  leave  the  rocks  protruding  like 
the  ribs  of  a  mighty  skeleton.  The  farms,  for  the  most 
j^art,  lie  on  the  broad  but  uneven  uplands,  and  the 
streams  wend  seaward  in  hollows  almost  narrow  enough 
to  be  called  ravines,  between  steej)  declivities.  The 
waters  are  sweet  and  the  streams  clear.  Xo  venomous 
serpent  is  known  in  this  region,  the  rattlesnake  and  the 
copperhead  find  no  lodgment  in  its  soil  or  among  its 
rocks.  The  fever  and  a^ue  is  never  known  here,  and 
one  who  comes  from  the  region  where  that  form  of  dis- 
ease  prevails  and  brings  his  chills  and  chattering  teeth 
with  him,  is  looked  upon  with  a  sort  of  wonder.  The 
summers  are  cool,  but  the  winters  are  long,  beginning 
earlier  than  in  the  lower  regions  of  the  State  and  con- 
tinuing longer,  while  it  rarely  happens  that  after  the 
ground  is  well  covered  with  snow  the  earth  is  again  seen 
till  the  return  of  spring. 

These  lono-  winters  amoiF  the  intellectual  and  Indus- 
trious  are  well  impi*oved.  Among  creative  minds,  iso- 
lation tends  to  sell-concentration,  and  ultimately  soul- 
evolvement.       A    poetical    mind,    with    nature    in    the 


54  HOMESTEADS. 

background,  where  there  is  no   chronic  idleness,  tends 
to  productivity. 

IMPERSONATION. 

A  Genial  Family  Wrangle  over  "Egeeia"  and  the  " Moun- 
tain Wind." — An  ^Esthetic  Quaeeel,  in"  which  both 
aee  Right  and  neithee  Wbong. — Well  t<>  Settle  these 
"Family    Jabs  "   at   the  Theeshold. 

Many  familiar  with  Bbyant's  poems  would  be  sur- 
prised were  you  to  say  that  he  dealt  in  Impersonation! 
And  yet  his  impersonations  are  most  frequent,  and  cope 
in  truth  to  nature  with  the  German  and  the  Greek.  The 
Teuton  mind  is  regarded  as  the  modern  Nature-Expo- 
nent. The  (J  reek  ever  has  been  and  ever  will  be  regard- 
ed  as  the  Classic  or  Ancient  Exponent.  The  "Starry 
Greek"  impersonated:  behold  his  Mythology!  The 
"  introspectional  German"  impersonates:  behold  his 
Legends!  But  the  "practical  American?71  lias  lie  no 
wand  of  Art?     Can  he  not  impersonate? 

We  heard  a  complaint  the  other  day  from  a  princely 
landholder  that  lie  should  not  attempt  t<>  people  his  for- 
esl  lawns  and  vistas  with  sculpture  and  bronze,  because 
he  could  find  no  American  statues  in  the  least  appropri- 
ate. To  introduce  old-world  themes  into  the  shades  of 
the  new  world,  confused  his  reflections  and  disturbed 
lii-  aerenitj . 

A  spoiled  virtuoso?  a  Sybarite?  Perhaps.  The 
man  had  the  misfortune  to  be  naturally  poetic:  difficult 


HOMESTEADS.  55 

to  please.  His  "  Old  Masters  "  lie  kept  in  the  house. 
Out  of  doors  lie  wanted  New  Masters,  He  is  looking: 
for  them  yet. 

It  has  been  affirmed  that  letter-press  was  a  foe  to 
Sculpture.  That  The  Gtuttenberg  Art  (we  believe 
we  are  permitted  to  put  that  in  Capitals,  even  while 
abusing  it!)  by  making  a  Specialite  of  the  Subjective 
suppressed  the  advancement  of  the  Objective — to  the 
detriment  of  the  Plastic  Arts.  Thus  :  it  has  been  urged 
that  hundreds  are  satisfied  with  letter-press  descriptions 
of  a  statue.  This  in  America  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. In  the  palmy  days  of  Greece  the  populace  did 
not  read  of  statues — but  it  demanded  them  ! 

We  are  a  New  Race :  we  are  a  Young  Peojue,  and 
yet  we  impersonate  !  Our  winds  are  as  good  winds  as 
any  to  be  found  on  "The  Temple  of  the  Winds,"  at 
Athens. 

Egerta,    again  ?  * 

"  One  that,  like  Xnma,  often  bore 

From  haunted  fount  and  voiceless  glen 
The  wisdom  of  a  wiser  lore, 

Than  marks  the  babbling  school  of  men." 

As  far  back  as  1830  we  note  a  quaint  entanglement 
of  conception  with  regard  to  the  Genius  Loci  or  Ecjeria 
of  the  Bryant  Homestead. 


*  W.  P.  P.  To  a  very  dear  friend,  with  a  plain  copy  of  Bryant's  Poems. 
New  York,  1830. 


56  •  HOM  EST  E  A  DS. 

What  is  EgeriaS  [nspiration :  "the  lovely  Soul 
of  Nature!"  Health.  Longevity  in  the  personnel  of 
Juvenescence.     A^v  in  the  raise  of  Youth. 

"Egeria!  sweel  creation  of  some  heart, 
Which  found  no  mortal  resting-place  so  fair 
As  thine  ideal  breast  ;  whate'er  thou  art, 
Or  wert,  a  young  Aurora  of  the  air, 
The  nynipholepsy  of  some  fond  despair; 
Or,  it  might  be,  a  beauty  of  the  earth, 
Who  found  a  more  than  common  votary  there 
Too  much  adoring;  whatsoe'er  thy  birth, 
Thou  wert  a  beautiful  thought,  and  softly  bodied  forth." 

Byron,  Child  Harold. 

But  we  do  not  feel  that  Byron's  venerable  Numa's 
Egeria,  is  exactly  Bryant's  Mountain  Wind.  Noi  ex- 
actly.    Yet  1  ><>t li  conceptions  arc 

"Airy  and  light — the  offspring  of  the  80111/' 

Schiller, 

"The  beings  of  the  mind  are  not  of  clay  ; 
Essentially  immortal,  they  create 
And  multiply  in  us  a  brighter  ray 
And  more  beloved  existence." 

Byron. 

Bryant's  "Mountain  Wind"  is  a  matchless  imper- 
sonation, but  more  of  the  Shakspearean  than  the 
Byronic  type.  Winds  are  masculine.  This  is  a  youth. 
80  is  Shakspeare's  Arid.  At  firsl  glance  you  may  think 
this  Mountain  Wind  as  intangible  as  Byron's  Strain  of 


II  0  M  ESTEADS.  5 7 

Music — which  so  many  have  grasped  to  catch  and  con- 
serve in  Art.     AVe  rive  the  two  to  sIioav  the  difference. 

o 

"  Oh,  that  I  were 
The  viewless  spirit  of  a  lovely  sound, 
A  bodiless  enjoyment — born  and  dying 
With  the  blessed  tone  which  made  me  !" 

Byron's  Manfred, 

Subjective  :  Intangible. 

uJBe  stoops  him  from  his  vast  cerulean  hall, 
He  seems  the  breath  of  a  celestial  clime." 

Bkvaxt's  Jloiuit'ihi  Wind. 
Objective :  Tangible. 

Sculpture.  This  Wend,  stooping  earthward,  is  the 
most  spiritual  of  youths,  whose  mantle  downward 
blown,  strewn  with  forest-1  eaves,  touches  earth,  forming 
the  support  of  the  figure  which  is  yet  in  motion.  From 
his  hand  he  scatters  Wind-Flowers. 

This  conception  is  to  be  modelled  in  terra  cotta 
for  a  monumental  shrine  for  ww  The  Spring " — about 
which  we  will  tell  in  the  proper  place.  The  ancients 
used  terra  cotta  far  more  than  we  do,  and  they  evinced 
their  wisdom.  But  we  will  not  now  stop  to  discuss  the 
subject. 

This  "  Mountain  Wind,"  this  Egeria  of  our  vener- 
able Ximia,  is  "  the  lovely  soul  of  Nature  "—the  "  deli- 
cate preacher  "  of  Song.  She  it  was  who  whispered  to 
him  the  meaning  of  poetry — soul-resurrection.  Song 
elicits  the  soul  self-immured  in  the  natal  cradle  of  man's 


58  11  <»  M  EST  EADS. 

breast.  Son--  elicits  tin*  god  within  us.  Man  is  leno- 
rant  of  the  mysteries  of  his  own  nature  till  he  begins  to 
express  himself.  There  is  no  apparent  harmony  in  the 
lyre  till  it  is  played  Upon.  But  the  wind  can  awaken 
the  lyre,  and  TJu  Spirit  of  The  Mountain  Wind 
awakened   the   poet. 

With  regard  to  the  entanglement  of  conceit!  It  is 
but  just  to  say,  that  while  the  Mountain  Wind  is  a 
tangible,  Greek  impersonation,  and  can  stand  the  test 
of  the  Objective — the  Plastic  Arts;  Subjectively  it 
impersonates  Egeria — the  Soul  of  Nature. 

Let  us  not  quarrel.  "  W.  P.  P."  was  right,  "thirty 
years  ago,"  to  sing  of  our  Venerable  Nuina's  Egeria. 
But  if  he  should  see  our  sculptor's  terra  cottft  statuette 
of  the  Greek  phase  of  Bryant's  "Mountain  Wind" 
we  crave  of  him  the  like  aesthetic  charity  we  extend  to 
him.  He  take-  the  Subjective  view;  Ave  the  Objec- 
tive. 

Water-View  <»\  the  Premises. — A  Phase  ok  "Still  Water," 
the  Poet's  Pet  Forest-Ferns  i\  the  Foreground. 

This  is  one  of  those  quiet  little  l»its  of  landscape 
which  are  overlooked  by  the  ordinary  observer,  and 
only  arrest  the  eye  of  the  artist  or  the  minute  observer 
of  nature.  A  cleai  little  pool  under  a  sloping  bank,  its 
surface  irreen  with  the  reflection  of  the  vegetation  bv 
which  it  i>  overhung;  no  living  thing  near  save  perhaps 
tli--  foresl    bird   that  descends  to  drink  in  silence,  and  its 


BOM E STEADS 


59 


fresh  wild  herbage  never  cropped  by  the  herd.  A  place 
the  sight  of  which  suggests  ideas  of  stillness  and  soli- 
tude. 

Kemp  says  the  element  of  water  is  a  great  educator. 
We  shall  have  something  to  say  of  water  as  well  as  of 
land  in  our  next  book,  and  perhaps  of  the  very  source  of 
this  limpid  pool  upon  whose  marge  ferns  and  mossy 
rocks  and  umbrageous  birches  and  maples  overlean  and 
regard  themselves  reflected  in  Nature's  primal  mirror. 
Our  Veteran  is  a  Druid  who  inculcates  veneration  for 
the  Forces  of  Nature.  In  the  next  book  we  will  tell 
how  veneration  for  one  of  the  Grand  Elements  was 
instilled  in  him.  We  are  inclined  to  agree  with  Kemp, 
that  the  element  of  water  is  one  of  the  Educational 
Forces,  not  to  be  disregarded. 


BOOK     TIT 


INTERIOR     LIFE 


Homestead  Interior  Life  in  the  Olden  Time. — Poet's 
Infancy  and  Youth. — A  Small  Book  this,  Entirely 
Devoted  to  the  Despised  Humanities. — The  Rivulet. 


PETER  B  R  Y  A  N  T,  father  of  the 
deeply-to-be-commiserated  victim  of 
our  Kaleidoscopic  Sketches,  was  the 
antithesis  of  Faustis  father;  albeit 
both  take  for  coat  of  arms  the  classic  Pestle  and 
Mortar  of  the  Greek  ^Esculapius*  Both  finished 
their  practice.  Faust's  father  hilled  off  all  his  patients, 
while  Bryant's   father  cured  up   all   of  his  who  were 


*  Classically,  the  modern  Pestle  and  Mortar  should  be  the  ancient 
symbolism  of  the  Serpent.  This  was  sacred  to  iEsculapins,  who  was 
represented  with  a  large  beard,  holding  in  his  hand  a  staff,  round 
which  was  wreathed  a  Serpent ;  his  other  hand  was  supported  on  the 
head  of  a  Serpent — which  is  supposed  to  symbolize  wisdom  :  wisdom 
being  a  great  desideratum  -in  the  medical  as  well  as  other  arts.  JEsculapius 
in  Homer  is  not  a  divinity,  but  simply  the  "  blameless  physician." 


62  I  N  TE  RIOR    LI  F  E. 

curable.     There  was  nothing  more  to  be  done  in  either 
case.     Othello's  occupation  was  gone. 

The  Medical  I>r\ ant  escutcheon  "this  side  «>'  the 
Bea"  numbers  three  Pestles  and  Mortars  (skull  and 
hours).  Our  artist  thought  two  pestles  one  too  many, 
bul  en  verite  the  Bryant  line  is  like  the  Helvetius  line 
in  Holland,  which  turned  out  three  "  M.  D.'s,"  and 
finally  ran  to  literature.     The  Helvetius  line  ran  thus: 

(John  Frederic,  Son — 
John  Adrian,  Sou  — 
John  Claude  Adrian,  Son. 
The    Medical    Helvetius  line  now    diverged    into    Lit- 
erature— 

CLAUDE     ADRIAN. 

Literal  nr<<.     Biography  stops  here. 

THE     REIGN      OF       KScr  LA  PIT  S. 

Jean  Pail  says: — "Herder  and  Schiller  in- 
tended in  their  youth  to  become  surgeons.  But  fate 
said  'No!  there  are  deeper  wounds  than  those  of  the 
body.'     And  they  both  wrote." 

On  the  northeast  corner  of  the  Bryant  Homestead 
was  a  long  wing,  in  the  kitchen  of  which  our  poet 
in  his  boyhood  lias  frolicked  many  an  evening  with 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  eaten  apples  by  the 
blazing  fireside.     Here   he  acquired  a  taste  for  apples 


INTERIOR    LIFE.  63 

that  bids  fair  to  be  historical.  But  it  is  with  the 
southwest  corner  that  we  have  now  to  do.  And  here 
we  trace  the  first  dawnings  of  that  antagonism  that 
finally  destroyed  the  line  of  the  Medical  Bryants. 
The  northeast  and  the  southwest  were  even  at  this 
early  hour  diagonally  liors  de  combat.  The  youngsters 
with  their  apples  around  the  blazing  hearth-stone, 
their  fun  and  their  frolic  counterbalanced  the  staid 
doctor  in  his  office,  his  pestle  and  mortar — plasters 
and  pill-box.  On  the  southwest  corner  stood  a  low 
wing  occupied  by  Dr.  Bryant  as  The  Temple  of 
^Esculapius.  An  awful  spot.  Here  the  lather  initi- 
ated many  promising  young  disciples  into  the  mys- 
teries of  the  healing  art.     Traditionary  lore. 

^Esthetics  of  a  name.  Are  you  all  named  for  great 
people  \ — those  who  have  made  their  mark  in  the 
world  \  And  were  you  intended  by  your  far-seeing 
parents  and  guardians  to  tread  in  their  illustrious 
footsteps  and  make  a  mark  after  their  copy,  as  you 
did  in  your  copy-books  \  That  is  all  very  well.  Even 
old  Blair  instructs  us,  that  since  to  the  virtuous  and 
illustrious  the  world  is  never  indifferent,  therefore  the 
ancients  proposed  that  youth  should  be  educated  to  con- 
cede to  such  respect  and  homage  due  to  patrons  or  god- 
fathers— taking  in  many  instances  their  names,  in  order 
to  have  their  characters  ever  before  the  mind's  eye. 
We  read  in  Auerbach's  "Tales  of  the  Black  Forest,1' 
how  Ivo  Block  and   his  student  confreres  speculated    on 


64  1  N  TE  R  I  OR    L  I  FE. 

on  each  adopting  a  patron-genius  and  honoring  his 
name.  But  these  children  were  evidently  re-named;  or, 
it'  named  but  once,  named  after  their  characters  had 
begun  to  be  developed. 

But  sometimes  parents  in  these  latter  days  make  a 
mistake  and  give  a  young  poet  or  musician  a  doctor's 
or  a  lawyer's  name.  This  creates  confusion,  and  should 
l»c  avoided  in  future. 

A     NAME     A     "  MEMORIAL?" 

Alexander's  "Memorial" — A  familiar  Historical 
Anecdote,  peculiarly  apropos  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

"A  proper  name  is,  as  we  said  before,  a  remem- 
brance. In  the  Bible  the  words  'name1  and  'memorial ) 
occur  as  parallels  and  synonyms  to  each  other.  A 
name  is  a  memorial.  We  are  told  that  Alexander  the 
Great,  going  to  Avar,  sent  word  to  the  Jews  to  erect 
him  a  monument,  which  he  hoped  to  find  on  his  return 
from  the  expedition.  He  came  hack  (we  suppose  from 
India)  some  years  afterward,  but  there  was  no  monu- 
ment. Angry  and  astonished,  he  summoned  the  High- 
priest  to  come  before  him.  The  High-priest  came, 
having  children  in  his  suite.  The  king  asked  him 
ironically  if  lie  had  forgotten  his  order.  'Sire,'  the 
High-priest  said,  *it  is  contrary  t<>  <>nr  religion  to 
make  any  image  or  statue.  But,  look  here!'  and 
he  turned  round  t<>  the  children,  and  asked  one  boy, 
and    then     another,   and    then    another:    'What    is  your 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  65 

name  f  'Alexander,1  answered  each  boy,  one  more, 
one  less  distinctly,  according  to  his  age.  'Sire/  said 
the  High-priest,  'you  see  we  have  fulfilled  your  com- 
mand, by  calling  every  boy  who  was  born  during 
your  absence  by  your  name ;  and  as  those  names 
will  go  down  from  generation  to  generation,  those 
living  monuments  will  be  much  better  than  a  monu- 
ment of  stone.' 

"The  High-priest  was  right," 

Putnam  s  Mag.,  Sept,  1868. 

Whatever  their  national  extraction  the  Bryants 
came  of  an  intellectual  line.     Soul-Development. 

NAMING     OF     THE     POET. 

Let  us  imagine  Dr.  Bryant  sitting  in  his  office, 
lost  in  thought.  How  should  he  name  his  young 
son  ?  Suddenly  his  eye  lit  upon  the  Medical  Library : 
the  family  library  which  had  been  in  the  house  for 
three  generations.  There  were  the  tomes  of  the  great 
Scottish  Physician — Dr.  William  Cullex  :  indispu- 
table authority  on  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to. 
We  may  fancy  the  Doctor  thus  soliloquizing — "  I  will 
call  my  son  William  Cullex.  Now,  certainly,  of  all  my 
sons  lie  will  take  after  the  pill-box,  as  other  youngsters 
take  after  candies  and  apples.  I  shall  see  my  young 
son  William  an   illustrious  '  M.  D.'     Perad venture,  his 


66  INTER  I  OK     LI  Ft:. 

ponderous  tomes  on  Hygeia  will  cumber  the  shelves  of 
posterity  !" 

Alas  for  parental  solicitude.  Nature,  the  omni- 
present   Earth-Mother,  who   wiU   ever   have    her   own 

way,  said — "No!  I  have  already  kept  this  family  in 
drugs  for  three  generations!  My  -tore  of  Materia 
Medica  is  <juite  exhausted.  Everybody  being  healed 
up  now,  and  the  air  being  longevity  itself — it  will 
never  do  to  have  any  more  doctors.  Humanity  nni-t 
l>e  fed:  I  must  have  more  farmers  and  fewer  doctors. 
Some  must  Soiv,  and  some  must  sing  The  Song  of 
the  Sower.  The  Americas  Soil  has  awakened  to 
Belf-consciousness.  People  must  have  food  for  the 
mind  as  well  as  for  the  body.  I  want  a  meta-\A\x- 
sician,  who  can  prescribe  wholesome  tonics  for  the 
mind  diseased,  and  decoy  poor  stifled  humanity  out 
into  'the  magnificent  temple  of  the  sky."1 

So  Nature  willed  that  the  young  Bryant  should 
be  a  poet  ;  and  poetry,  Schiller  says,  prepares  the 
mind   for  the  contemplation  of  God. 

Dr.  Bryant  soon  found  he  had  for  once  made  a 
wrong  diagnosis.  The  Muses  had  sent  him  a  Poet 
instead  of  Hygeia  sending  him  a  Disciple. 

Bui  the  child  was  christened)  it  was  too  late  to 
alter  his  name.  This  little  contretemps  explains  how 
the  old  Caledonian  iEsculapius,  Doctor  William  Cullen, 
lives  in  fche  reflection  of  an  American  poet's  fame. 
II<'    rejoices    in    a  transatlantic  "meinorial,"  or   rather 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  67 

his  publishers  speculate  upou  it — which  amounts  to 
the  same  thing.  This  reminds  us  of  Alexander's 
''Memorial,"  the  anecdote  previously  related. 

REGIME PHYSICAL. 

Wholesome  Regime  for  Young  Genius,  and  the  Ruthless 
Invasion  of  the  Xursery  by  the  Waggish  Young 
Students. 

Doctor  Bryant,  it  will  be  conceded,  was  a  rare 
"  Country  Doctor,"  in  more  senses  than  one.  He  had 
an  eye  to  the  education  of  the  physique^  which  in 
those  primal  days  was  usually  ignored.  But  his  Men- 
tal Regime !  It  strikes  the  plane,  in  soul-development, 
of  that  of  Goethe'' s  father :  and  ancestor  Bryant  and 
ancestor  Goethe  both  get  their  precious  sons  into  a 
"  blind  alley !  "  but  we  anticipate. 

Bryant's  infantile  education  differed  from  that  of 
Montaigne's.  Both  alike  delicate  in  infancy.  Hear 
the  old  Gascon's  confession :  "  Even  my  infancy  was 
trained  up  after  a  gentle  and  free  manner,  and  exempt 
from  any  rigorous  subjection.  All  which  helped  me 
to  a  connexion  delicate  and  incapable  of  solicitude; 
even  to  that  decree  that  I  love  to  have  my  losses, 
and  the  disorders  wherein  I  am  concerned,  concealed 
from  me."  Ah,  the  old  Gascon  could  never  "grasp 
into  the  thick  of  life."  He  himself  concedes  it.  A 
passive,  negative,  introspectional,  morbidly  egotistical 
existence   had  he :    and    yet   it   is   interesting   to    idly 


68  INTERIOR     LIFE. 

listen  to  his  pratings.  A  Belf-opinionated  voice  from 
France  in  1500.*  But  ours  was  a  new  country — where 
active,  positive,  disseminating  life-principle  was  re- 
quired. And  now  Ave  come  to  the  Legend  of  the 
Spring — all  in  due  time.  Ours  is  an  idle,  leisurely, 
unnecessary  book,  and  there  must  be  no  hurry  in  it. 
There  is  a  story  that  Byron's  old  Highland  nurse,  who 
used  to  rock  him  to  sleep  in  her  brawny  arms, 

"  Tween  the  gloaming  an'  the  mirk, 
When  the  kye  come  hame, 
When  the  kye  come  hame !" 

kept,  treasured  up  in  her  "  chist  <:>'  drawers,"  one  of 
the  poet's  infantile,  cast-off,  worn-out  ul>al>y  socks." 
It  is  reported  that  when  Lord  Byron  came  to  hear 
the  story,  he  laughed  heartily:  though  not  without  a 
"tear  in  his  e'e" — the  only  time  he  was  ever  sup- 
posed to  laugh  heartily  in  his  life.  Whether  the 
Veteran  of  Cummington  will  laugh  heartily,  should 
he  ever  hear  our  story,  we  know  not.  Possibly  we 
might  get  our  ears  boxed;  so  you  must  keep  this  a 
secret  as  well  as  the  secret  of  the  Apple-Tree.  It 
is  by  committing  to  idle  posterity  the  legends  and 
Lore  of  the  past  that  history  and  philosophy  are 
perpetuated* 

Birth  and  Death.  Michael  de  Montaigne  was  bom.  as  he  himself 
tolls  ii-.  "betwixl  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  the  last  of 
February,  L583."  Pasquier  informs  us  that  "The  Pleaaanl  Egotist "  ex- 
pired on  the  18th  September,  1592,  in  the  60th  year  of  his  age,  "present- 
ing in  Ills  death  a  lino  mirror  of  the  interior  ot  his  soul." 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  69 

Tradition  asserts  that  Bryant  in  his  infancy  was 
of  frail  physique^  with  an  immense  head.  Dr.  Bryant, 
disapproving  of  such  precocious  cerebral  development, 
ordered  him  to  be  ducked  every  morning  in  pure 
spring  water, — a  spring  as  beautiful  as  Calypso's, 
bordered  with  tender  herbs,  parsley,  and  dewy  vio- 
lets. (See  Odyssey.)  So  two  of  the  students  each 
morning  stole  the  delicate  infant  from  his  mothers 
warm  couch,  ran  with  him  to  the  spring  some 
forty  rods  from  the  house,  and  immersed  him  several 
times  head  foremost  in  the  cool  clear  water.  Tra- 
dition further  reports  that  the  youngster  resisted 
manfully,  not  then  appreciating  such  treatment.  But, 
strange  to  relate,  the  oftener  he  was  ducked  the 
stronger  he  grew,  until  finally  the  morning  fight  with 
the  students  began  to  assume  the  phase  of  modern 
gymnastics ;  and  possibly  this  is  the  origin  of  his  gym- 
nastic exercises.  If  poetic  tire  could  be  quenched,  the 
inspiration  of  our  infant  poet  should  have  been  well 
cooled  off  1  >y  this  merciless  plunge-bath  experiment. 

Time  rolled  on.  Young  Bryant  had  not  then  read 
Shakspeare,  but  he  disliked  to  go  to  his  matutinal 
bath  "upon  compulsion."  So  he  concluded  to  volun- 
tarily adopt  the  cold-water  regime  and  gymnastic 
exercise  as  a  life  tonic — though  instead  of  fujhtinsr 
students,  he  contents  himself  Avith  practising  the 
dumb-bells,  and  advises  every  one  to  go  and  do  like- 
wise.    The  Veteran  is  a  great  athlete. 


7il  INTERIOR     LIFE. 


"Cold- Water  Baths"  and  "  Muscular  CmiSTiAinTY." 

How  Oxford  Hughes,  of"  Tom  Brown"  notoriety, 
would  like  fco  put  his  English  goose-quill  in  just 
here  and  rive  his  scratch  in  favor  of  k"  all  out-doors 
Physical  Exercise,"  and  icUmg-away-the-time-generally- 
witb-Nature,  as  a  relief  of  too  much  scholastic  wisdom 
and  precocious  genius. 

How  Professor — Doctor  Dio  Lewis  (we  shall 
never  get  his  title  right)  would  like  a  page  of 
our  book  for  his  advertisement.  He  would  insist 
that  "Physical  Exercise"  alone  made  the  genius  of 
Bryant ! 

How  "  Tlte  House  of  Schermerhorn,"  that  great 
Scholastic  Foundry  where  Education,  from  Patent 
S.-at-  (of  learning)  to  diplomas,  can  be  had  for  green- 
backs— would  like  a  page  on  Dumb-bells  and  Indian- 
Clubs  and  all  their  thousand-and-one  inventions  to 
lake  the  strain  off  of  the  taxed  brain.  Lastly — how 
the  Water-Cure  people  will  love  to  quote  this  ex- 
ample of  Bryant  ! 

Quit  dusty  Gotham  with  all  its  advertisements: 
they  will  not  give  you  either  strength  or  health,  wit 
or  learning,  if  the  vital  principle  be  not  cherished 
within   you. 

But  they  may  be  regarded  as  means  to  elicit  it 
— if  it   be  dormant. 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  71 

Perhaps.  But  we  are  now  sjDeakiug  of  the  times  ere 
such  things  as  k*  Health  advertisements "  were  heard 
of;  when  people  were  just  beginning  to  awaken 
to  the  Recuperative  Forces  of  Nature.  This  High- 
land Homestead  was  the  stronghold  of  health, — the 
region  for  miles  and  miles  a  composite  of  vigor 
and  longevity. 

"  The  Spring"  in  which  the  infant  poet  was  im- 
mersed is  the  source  of  The  Rivulet  which  mean- 
ders prettily  by  the  rear  of  the  house,  and  is 
thus  poetically  described  by  him.  Hundreds  have 
read  the  poem  and  admired  its  truth  to  nature  without 
knowing  that  they  were  charmed  by  Nature's  self. 
"  TJie  SpriTig"  was  to  the  infantile  poet  the  Fountain 
of  Health,  and  who  shall  say  that  to  the  youthful 
poet  it  was  not  the  Fount  of  Poesy,  as  it  is  to  the 
veteran  Minstrel  the  Shrine  of  Memory  \ 

Infancy,  Youth,  Manhood,  and  Age  are  charmed 
around  that  spring  and  its  wandering  Rivulet.  A 
grateful  return  did  the  Poet  make  in  after  years  to 
this  fountain  of  health.  The  Rivulet  is  one  among 
his  first  and  choicest  descriptive  poems,  and  in  con- 
nection with  others  has  been  admirably  illustrated  by 
a  talented  young  artist.  But  all  this  from  imagi- 
nation alone.  Until  the  talented  Hows  went  on 
his  pious  pilgrimage  to  the  Bryant  Homestead,  in 
the  "  leafy  June "  of  1868,  on  the  special  mission  to 
take  our  illustrations  for  idle  Posterity,  the  veritable 


72  INTERIOR     LIFE. 

Riwlet,  whose  origin  is  the  Legendary  Spring,  was 
never  before  sketched.  Our  artist's  illustrations  of  the 
Rivulet  commence  with  the  Tail-Piece  of  this  in- 
teresting Book  III., — depicting  the  Legendary  Spring^ 
the  Source  of  the  Rivulet,  The  Large  Illustration  of 
Book  Y.  is  the  Rivulet  in  its  meanderings,  while  the 
Tail-Piece  of  Book  V.  is  yet  another  phase  of  the 
storied  stream.  We  now  give  the  much  admired  poem 
entire. 

THE     RIVULET. 

This  little  rill,  that  from  the  springs 
Of  yonder  grove  its  current  brings, 
Plays  on  the  slope  awhile,  and  then 
Goes  prattling  into  groves  again, 
Oft  to  its  warbling  waters  drew 
My  tittle  feet,  when  life  was  new. 
When  woods  in  early  green  were  dressed. 
And  from  the  chambers  of  the  west 
The  warmer  breezes,  travelling  out, 
Breathed  the  new  scent  of  flowers  about, 
My  truant  steps  from  home  would  stray, 
Upon  its  grassy  side  to  play, 
List  the  brown  thrasher's  vernal  hymn, 
And  crop  the  violet  on  its  brim, 
With  blooming  cheek  and  open  brow, 
As  young  and  gay,  sweet  rill,  as  thou. 

And  when  the  days  of  boyhood  came, 
And  I  had  grown  in  love  with  fame, 
Duly  I  sought  thy  banks,  and  tried 
My  first  rude  numbers  by  thy  side. 
Words  cannot  tell  how  bright  and  gay 
The  -rciics  of  life  before  me  lay. 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  7:; 

Then  glorious  hopes,  that  now  to  speak 
Would  bring  the  blood  into  my  cheek, 
Passed  o'er  me  ;  and  I  wrote,  on  high, 
A  name  I  deemed  should  never  die. 


Years  change  thee  not.     Upon  yon  hill 
The  tall  old  maples,  verdant  still, 
Yet  tell,  in  grandeur  of  decay, 
How  swift  the  years  have  passed  away, 
Since  first,  a  child,  and  half  afraid, 
I  wandered  in  the  forest  shade. 
Thou,  ever  joyous  rivulet, 
Dost  dimple,  leap,  and  prattle  yet  ; 
And  sporting  with  the  sands  that  pave 
The  windings  of  thy  silver  wave, 
And  dancing  to  thy  own  wild  chime, 
Thou  laughest  at  the  lapse  of  time. 
The  same  sweet  sounds  are  in  my  ear 
My  early  childhood  loved  to  hear; 
As  pure  thy  limpid  waters  run; 
As  bright  they  sparkle  to  the  sun ; 
As  fresh  and  thick  the  bending  ranks 
Of  herbs  that  line  thy  oozy  banks; 
The  violet  there,  in  soft  May  dew, 
Comes  up,  as  modest  and  as  blue  ; 
As  green  amid  thy  current's  stress, 
Floats  the  scarce-rooted  watercress  : 
And  the  brown  ground-bird,  in  thy  glen, 
Still  chirps  as  merrily  as  then. 


Thou  changest  not — but  I  am  changed, 
Since  first  thy  pleasant  banks  I  ranged; 
And  the  grave  stranger,  come  to  see 
The  play-place  of  his  infancy, 
Has  scarce  a  single  trace  of  him 
Who  sported  once  upon  thy  brim. 
10 


74  INTERIOR    LIFE. 

The  visions  of  my  youth  are  past— 
T<h>  bright,  too  beautiful  to  last. 
I've  tried  the  world — it  wears  no  more 
The  coloring  of  romance  it  wore. 
Yet  well  has  Nature  kept  the  truth 
She  promised  to  my  earliest  youth. 
The  radiant  beauty  shed  abroad 
On  all  the  glorious  works  of  God, 
Shows  freshly,  to  my  sobered  eye. 
Each  charm  it  wore  in  days  gone  by. 


A  few  brief  years  shall  pass  away. 
And  I,  all  trembling,  weak,  and  gray, 
Bowed  to  the  earth,  which  waits  to  fold 
My  ashes  in  the  embracing  mould, 
(If  haply  the  dark  will  of  fate 
Indulge  my  life  so  long  a  date,) 
May  come  for  the  last  time  to  look 
Upon  my  childhood's  favorite  brook. 
Then  dimly  on  my  eye  shall  gleam 
The  sparkle  of  thy  dancing  stream; 
And  faintly  on  my  ear  shall  fall 
Thy  prattling  current's  merry  call; 
Yet  shalt  thou  flow  as  glad  and  bright 
As  when  thou  met'st  my  infant  sight. 


And  I  shall  sleep — and  on  thy  side, 
As  ages  after  ages  glide, 
Children  their  early  sports  shall  try, 
And  pass  to  hoary  age  and  die. 
Bu1  thou,  unchanged  from  year  to  year, 
Gayly  shalt   piny  and  glitter  here; 
Amid  young  flowers  and  tender  grass 
Thy  endless  infancy  shall   pa>s  ; 
And,  singing  down  thy  narrow  glen, 
Shalt   mock  the  fading  race  of  men. 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  75 

Now,  a  dam  has  been  placed  across  the  ravine, 
making  a  line  sheet  of  water.  Many  other  localities 
hereabouts  are  described  in  the  poems  of  both  the 
brothers — for  instance,  "The  Mountain  Grave-yard,"  by 
John  H.  Bryant;  "  The  Two  Graves,"  by  William 
Cullen,  etc.  We  will  tell  about  this  poet-brother  pres- 
ently. 

TIME    CARRIES    AAV  AY    OLD    STRUCTURES. 

Wherein  Poesy  stands  aside  for  Antiquity.  Our 
Dramatic  Illustration,  which  turns  even  the  storied 
Rivulet  from  its  proper  channel,  is  an  extraordinary 
effort  of  genius  for  the  Occident,  not  to  be  outdone 
by  the  "  Alexander  Procession "  of  the  Orient,  which 
somebody  now  turns  off  on  his  silver-cups  for  Young 
America,  thus  symbolically  strengthening  him  with 
the  wine  of  antiquity.  It  depicts  the  triumphal 
emigration  of  the  Temple  oe  yEscuLAPius,  Doctor  Bry- 
ant's old  office,*  or  symbolic  exit  of  Allopathy,  the 
very  walls  of  which  are  supposed  to  be  impregnated 
with  the  secrets  of  the  Art  practised  by  Hippoc- 
rates. The  building  is  drawn  by  twelve  yoke  of 
oxen  to  its  present  site,  a  mile  from  the  homestead. 
The    moment    our    artist    has    dramatically    seized    is 


*  The  renegade!  Departing  from  the  good  old  faitli  of  Allopathy.  Wm, 
C.  Bryant  has  been  chosen  President  of  the  New  York  Homoeopathic 
Hospital. — Moop.e's  R ural  Xew-  Yorker,  1869. 


7<;  INTERIOR    LIFE. 

when  the  ark  lias  rested  upon  the  right  spot  and 
refuses    to    budge    another    inch.      Antiquity    teaches 

us,  that  when  the  Penates  refuse  to  advance,  on 
that  spot  the  household  ark  must  rest.  It  is  vain 
tor  tin1  drivers  to  whip  up  or  the  hoys  to  lure  on 
that  Zodiacal  Band  of  Oxen:  <>ne  for  every  month 
of  the  year:  typical  of  Time.  Time  carries  away 
old  structures,  removes  ancient  landmarks,  and  makes 
a  general  revolution  among  the  homesteads  of  the 
earth.      11  lis  is  the  symbolic  exit  of  Allopathy. 

When  the  Medical  Art  gave  place  to  the 
Dusky  lint  of  the  Ptolemy  Race,  that  once  famous 
Temple  of  jJSsculapius  (the  Medicine  god  of  the 
Greeks)  is  now  the  abode  of  the  Ethiopians. 
Whether  they  practise  any  of  their  old  heirloom, 
traditionary  rites  of  Obi  under  its  charmed  roof, 
we  cannot  say:  hut  the  tenement  seems  to  he 
given  over  to  the  rule  and  the  reign  of  the  powers  of 
darkness, — a  spot  sacred  to  Awe  and  Suspicion,  the 
parents  of  superstitions  innumerable.  Strange  sounds 
are  said  to  issue  from  the  building — at  midniehl 
strange  ghosts  are  flitting  round — neither  of  Indian, 
European,  or  American  descent. 

The    African    reigns    in    one    corner    of   the    old 

I\in  \\    PontooSOok    Forest  ! 

The  Red  Man,  the   White  Man,  the  Black  Man. 
— But  where    is  the  Indian     the   Lord  of  the    Soil 
to  whom  the  Greal  Maniton  erave  the  Western  World  \ 


INTER  I  OK     LIFE.  79 

Where  are   the  Indians  of  the   Pontoosook  Forest, 
— their  Homestead  \ 

Let    "  The    Indian    Exodus  "    answer. 

CHARACTER      OF     THE     INHABITANTS,      AND      WHAT      EFFECT 
THIS     HAD     ON     THE     FUTURE     POET. 

Not  alone  is  man  impressible  by  nature,  but  no 
human  being  was  ever  yet  wholly  independent  of 
the  influence  of  his  fellow-man.  It  is  said  that 
Nature  has  educated  Bryant.  Not  entirely.  Nature 
has  rather  accomplished  him.  He  drew  his  ac- 
quirements from  that  grand,  much-abused,  and  ignored 
repertoire — Humanity.  "  Man  is  the  most  interesting 
subject  of  inquiry  to  man.  Every  thing  that  sur- 
rounds him  is  either  the  element  in  which  he  lives 
or  the  instruments  which  he  uses."  Bryant  has, 
through  the  songs  of  half  a  century,  so  interested 
us  in  the  elements  in  which  he  lives  his  nobler 
life,  his  interior  existence,  that  the  world  is  now 
interested  in  him.  From  the  works  of  the  poet  we 
become   interested  in  the  phenomena   of  the  man. 

GENERAL    FEATURES    OF    THE   HIGHLANDS    OF    CUMMINGTON. 

IN  HABITANTS. THE     M ASS. 

The    people    in    this    part    of  the    country    are    in- 
telligent,   industrious,  and    civil;    the    severity    of  the 


80  I  N  T  K  RIOR     I.  I  F  E. 

climate  and  the  somewhat  exhausted  soil  oblige  them 
to  be  laborious,  but  the  air  is  pure,  and  the  cli- 
mate healthy,  and  there  arc  many  instances  of  lon- 
gevity. Health,  Industry,  and  Frugality, — presided 
over  by  Contentment.  A  pleasing  rural  tableau. 
The  "  Starry  Greek "  who  impersonated  Earth  as  the 
"producing  mother"  would  impersonate  these  attri- 
butes;   would    people   this  Highland  with   Genii. 

EPITAPH    o.V    ONE    <»F    THE     INHABITANTS, 

His  youth  was  innocent  :  his  riper  age 
Marked  with  some  act  of  goodness  every  day  ; 

And  watched  by  eyes  that  loved  him,  calm,  and  sage, 
Faded  liis  late  declining  years  away. 

Cheerful  he  gave  liis  being  up,  and  went 

To  share  the  holy  rest  that  waits  a  life  well  spent. 

First  clue  of  the  "  Two-fold  Thread."    The    Real 

ami     the     Ideal. 

This  solitude  iii  a  highland  region  two  miles 
and  a  half  from  any  village  or  post-office,  among 
woods  and  pastures  of  very  little  tilth,  contains  a 
population  of  simple  hal>its,  though  not  unintelligent. 
The  more  refined  employ  themselves  in  the  pursuit 
of  literature  and  belles-lettres.  But  this  stronghold 
among  the  rock-  was  the  school  of  a  practical  phi- 
losophy   happily   evolved    in    The   Old   Mini's-    Counsel. 

The     mas<    of    the     population     tells,    by     the    pvls€ 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  81 

of  philosophy,  upon  the   young  poet's   heart.     Human- 
ity points  the  lesson   of  Nature. 

In  the  following  Philosophical,  Humanitarian 
poem  there  are  three  separate  beauties :  the  match- 
less May  Scenarium ;  the  favorite  grouse,  partridge 
(or  Time)  Simile ;  and  the  philosophic,  humanitarian 
Climax — worthy  of  an  ancient  Greek.  And  the  poem 
is  Greek  in  its  agricultural  philosophy — its  profound 
Humanity.  We  call  this  rustic  sag^e  the  ancient  agri- 
culturist,  but  the  American  farmer  is  the  duality  of 
the  Greek  herdsman  and  sower. 

THE    OLD    MAX's     COUNSEL. 

Among  our  hills  and  valleys,  I  have  known 
Wise  and  grave  men,  who,  while  their  diligent  hands 
Tended  or  gathered  in  the  fruits  of  earth, 
Were  reverent  learners  in  the  solemn  school 
Of  nature.     Xot  in  vain  to  them  were  sent 
Seed-time  and  harvest,  or  the  vernal  shower 
That  darkened  the  brown  tilth,  or  snow  that  beat 
On  the  white  winter  hills.     Each  brought,  in  turn, 
Some  truth,  some  lesson  on  the  life  of  man, 
Or  recognition  of  the  Eterxal  Mind 
IV/to  veils  his  glory  with  the  element*. 

One  such  I  knew  long  since,  a  white-haired  man, 
Pithy  of  speech,  and  merry  when  he  would  ; 
A  genial  optimist,  who  daily  drew 
From  what  he  saw  his  quaint  moralities. 
Kindly  he  held  communion,  though  so  old, 
With  me  a  dreaming  boy,  and  taught  me  much 
That  books  tell  not,  and  I  shall  ne'er  forget, 
ll 


M>  I  X  T  E  RIOR     I,  I  F  E 


MAY    m  KNAKIl  M.  —  HOMESTEAD    REGION. 

The  sun  of  May  was  bright  in  middle  heaven, 
And  steeped  thi  sprouting  forests,  the  green  hills 
And  emerald  wheat-fields,  in  his  yellow  light. 
[Jpon  the  apple-tree,  where  rosy  buds 
St«»««d  clustered,  ready  to  burst  forth  in  bloom, 
The  robin  warbled  forth  Ids  full  clear  note 
For  hours,  and  wearied  not.     Within  the  woods, 
Whose  young  and  half  transparent  leaves  scarce  casl 
A  shade,  gay  circles  of  anemones 

Danced  on  their  stalks;   the  shadbush,  white  with  flowers, 
Brightened  the  glens;  the  new-leaved  butternut 
And  quivering  poplar  to  the  roving  breeze 
Gave  a  balsamic  fragrance.     In  the  fields 
I  saw  the  pulses  of  the  gentle  wind 

On  the  young  grass.      My  heart   was  touched  with  joy 
At  so  much  beauty,  Hushing  every  hour 
Into  a  fuller  beauty;  but  my  friend, 
The  thoughtful  ancient,  standing  at  my  side, 
Gazed  on  it  mildly  sad.      I  asked  him  why. 


THE    AM  IKM     A.GBICULTTJRIST   TO    THE    Y()UN(I    POET. 

u  Well  mays!  thou  join  in  gladness,"  he  replied, 
u  With  the  glad  earth,  hef  springing  plants  ami  flowers 
And  this  soft    wind,  the  herald  of  the  green 

Luxuriant  summer.     Thou  art  young  like  them, 
And  well  mayst  thou  rejoice.      But  while  the  Might 
Of  seasons  fills  and  knits  thy  spreading  frame, 
It    withers  mine,  and  thins  my  hair,  ami  dims 
These  eyes,  whose  lading  light  shall  soon  be  quenched 
In  utter  darkness.      Ilearcst  thou  that  bird  ?" 

I  listened,  and  from  midst  the  depth  of  woods 

Heard  the  love-signal  of  the  grouse,  that  wears 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  83 

A  sable  ruff  around  his  mottled  neck  ; 


Partridge  they  call  him  by  our  northern  streams, 

And  pheasant  by  the  Delaware.     lie  beat 

His  barred  sides  with  his  speckled  wings,  and  made 

A  sound  like  distant  thunder;  slow  the  strokes 

At  first,  then  fast  and  faster,  till  at  length 

They  passed  into  a  murmur  and  were  still. 

"  There  hast  thou,"  said  my  friend,  "  a  fitting  type 
Of  human  life.*     'Tis  an  old  truth,  I  know, 
But  images  like  these  revive  the  power 
Of  long  familiar  truths.     Slow  pass  our  days 
In  childhood,  and  the  hours  of  light  are  long 
Betwixt  the  morn  and  eve;  with  swifter  lapse 
They  glide  in  manhood,  and  in  age  they  fly ; 
Till  days  and  seasons  flit  before  the  mind 
As  flit  the  snow-flakes  in  a  winter  storm, 
Seen  rather  than  distinguished.     Ah  !  I  seem. 
As  if  I  sat  within  a  helpless  bark, 
By  swiftly  running  wTaters  hurried  on 
To  shoot  some  mighty  cliff.     Along  the  banks, 
Grove  after  grove,  rock  after  frowning  rock, 
Bare  sands  and  pleasant  homes,  and  flowery  nooks. 
And  isles  and  whirlpools  in  the  stream,  appear 
Each  after  each,  but  the  devoted  skiff 
Darts  by  so  swiftly  that  their  images 
Dwell  not  upon  the  mind,  or  only  dwell 
In  dim  confusion ;  faster  yet  I  sweej) 
By  other  banks,  and  the  great  gulf  is  near. 

*  "  I  remember  hearing  an  aged  man,  in  the  country,  compare  the  slow 
movement  of  time  in  early  life  and  its  swift  flight  as  it  approached  old  age, 
to  the  drumming  of  a  partridge  or  ruffed  grouse  in  the  woods — the  strokes 
falling  slow  and  distinct  at  first,  and  following  each  other  more  and  more 
rapidly,  till  they  end  at  last  in  a  whirring  sound.11 — The  reader  will  observe 
in  the  poem  there  are  a  chain  of  tropes.  The  whirring  partridge 
wings  ;  the  flitting  snow-flakes  ;   and  the  torrent  of  rushing  water. 

Time. — Thou  Chain  of  Glittering  Tropes  whose  links  arc   intangible. 
Indelicacv  outrivallini>"  the  Venetian. 


b4  INTERIOR     LIFE 


"  Wisely,  my  son,  while  yet  thy  days  arc  long, 
And  this  fair  change  of  seasons  passes  slow, 
Gather  and  treasure  up  the  good  they  yield — 
All  that  they  teach  of  virtue,  oi  pure  thoughts 
Of  kind  affections,  reverence  for  thy  God 
Ami  tor  thy  brethren  ;   BO  when  thou  shalt  come 
Into  these  barren  year-,  thou  mays!  not  bring 
A  mind  unfurnished  and  a  withered  heart.'1 


TIIK    IK  >M ESTEAD    IN    THE    OLDEN    TIME. — SOCIAL    LIFE. 

Bryant  in  his  younger  days  was  surrounded  by 
aspiring'  young  geniuses,  some  who  wrote  what  they 
called    poetry,   some    translated,   while    some   had    the 

g 1    taste    to   pay   their  devotions    not    alone   to   the 

muse,  but  to  the  pretty  young  ladies. 

Their  winter  amusements  were  sleigh-rides,  and  what 
was  the  greatesl  pastime  of  all,  singing-schools.  Some 
person  of  mature  age,  skilled  in  psalmody  and  with  a 
special  zeal  tor  church  music,  was  employed  at  a  mod- 
erate compensation  to  teach  psalm-singing  t<>  the  young 
people,  and  even  to  any  of'  riper  years  who  chose  to 
attend.  Evening  after  evening  the  sport  went  on  in 
the  long  winter  nights.  The  young  people  sang  each 
other  into  a  new  familiar  acquaintance,  and  their  elders 

Symbolizing  by  antithesis  one  <»t'  the  best  descriptions  of  Tin    Veteran 

<//'  ( 'r\i\iiN<.  i  o\.  in    lii-    Km.iitii    I  >f.(  adk.  that    can    In-    t'ouiul    in    the  whole 

range  of  literature. 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  85 

always  came  to  hear  them  and  observe  their  progress. 
There  were  no  lectures  at  that  time  to  be  attended, 
but  there  were  militia  trainings,  which  were  more 
frequent  then  than  now,  and  the  annual  regimental 
reviews  drew  all  the  population  of  three  or  four  con- 
tiguous towns  to  the  same  spot.  Whenever  the  frame 
of  a  building  was  to  be  raised,  it  was  a  frolic  for  the 
men ;  and  whenever  a  quilt  was  to  be  made,  it  was  a 
merry  time  for  the  women.  The  Fourth  of  July  was 
faithfully  observed  with  the  discharge  of  guns  and  an 
oration,  and  the  annual  thanksgiving  assembled  all 
the  scattered  members  of  the  family  to  a  feast  under 
the  roof  of  its  head.  There  were  sometimes  balls  and 
dances;  though  on  these  a  considerable  part  of  the 
older  population  looked  with  despair,  but  the  younger 
ones  had  them  notwithstanding.  Sometimes  a  season 
of  religious  earnestness  would  sweep  over  the  country ; 
some  popular  preacher  would  go  from  place  to  place, 
preaching  day  after  day  and  evening  after  evening, 
listened  to  with  great  interest,  and  numerous  converts 
would  be  gathered  into  the  churches.  Then  there 
were  political  differences,  and  controversies.  On  the 
whole,  remote  as  the  district  was,  and  different  as 
many  of  the  objects  of  interest  were  from  those  which 
attract  attention  at  the  present  day,  life  was  not  allowed 
to  stagnate  then  any  more  than  now.  The  genius  0f  |}ie 
passing  hour  vitalizes  every  day.  The  future  is  but  a 
progressive  modification  of  the  present. 


86  I  NT  KIM  OK     LIKE 


THE      IIOMKSTKAD     IN     THE     OLDEN      TIME. ANTIQUITY      OF 

THE     BUILDING. 

All  that  the  oldest  inhabitant  of  Massachusetts 
knows  of  the  mansion — the  Bryant  Homestead — is  that 
it  was  erected  by  an  early  settler  of  what  was  then 
called  the  Pontoosook  Forest.  This  early  settler  was 
Ebenezer  Snell,  Esq.,  the  maternal  grandfather  of 
the  poet ;  a  stern  old  Puritan  magistrate  who  dealt 
out  justice  in  a  summary  manner  to  the  pioneer  set- 
tlers. 

REIGN     OF     JUSTICE     IN     THE     OLDEN     TIME. 

Mr.  Bryant  points  out  even  now  the  spot  in  the 
neighborhood  where  stood  the  .public  whipping-post, 
and  he  speaks  of  having  seen,  just  after  his  punishment, 
the  last  culprit  who  was  flogged  *  there,  for  a  theft, 
upon  the  sentence  of  his  grandfather.  The  house  came 
into  possession  of  Dr.  Peter  Bryant,  father  of  the 
poet,  he  having  married  a  daughter  of  Squire  Snell, 
as  lie  was  popularly  called.  It  was  a  large,  low,  one- 
story  gambrel-roofed  house,  standing  on  a  fork  of  the 
roads,  with  thesides  adjusted  to  the  points  of  the  compass. 
These  pioneer  settlers  were  always  famous  for  having 
the  door  open  the  right  way,  so  that  they  would  know 

Wirtemberg   has  just    abolished   the  time-honored  "  whipping-post." 

The  Deutckera  are  a  little  behind  the  Yankees,  hut  "better  late  than 
never."  It  i-  -till  allowed  to  stand  in  the  state  of  Delaware,  to  the  dis- 
trrace  of  our  civilization. 


INTERIOR     LIFE.  87 

which  direction  to  take  by  the  sun  and  not  get  lost  in 
the  wilderness ;  and  famous  they  were  also  for  having 
the  family  or  keeping  room  on  the  sunny  side,  and 
thus  securing  a  sunny  temperament  for  the  children 
of  the  house.  Whether  there  was  a  "  weathercock  "  on 
the  gable-end  to  tell  which  way  the  wind  blew  we  can- 
not say.  We  are  rather  inclined  to  think  that  a  Dutch 
necessity  which  pertains  legitimately  to  the  founders  of 
New  Amsterdam.  We  have  made  searching  inquiries 
as  to  whether  there  was  a  horse-shoe  originally 
nailed  over  the  door — that  being  the  Puritan's  safe- 
guard against  witches.  Here  "  the  oldest  inhabitant  " 
again  fails  us,  and,  after  deep  pondering  we  conclude 
the  structure  was  neither  Dutch  nor  Puritan,  and  how 
it  has  stood  the  combined  attacks  of  Salem  witches, 
Dutch  hobgoblins,  and  Indian  spirits,  we  are  at  a  loss 
to  say.  But  this  we  know^ — originally  an  "  Ancient 
Oak  "  stood  close  to  the  back  of  the  house :  a  veritable 
forest  monarch  guarding  the  threshold.  About  this 
ancient  oak  more  hereafter. 

"The  Poet's  Spring" — the  fount  of  Health,  in  its 
grass-embowered  arbor  and  by  its  violet-sprinkled 
marge.  It  has  been  proposed  to  ornament  this  spring 
plateau  by  a  terra-cotta  statuette  of  "The  Mountain 
Wind,"  the  genius  of  Health — thus  the  two  combined 
make  a  pleasing  allegory.  Water  and  mountain  air,  the 
elemental  nurses  of  fragile  infancy,  insuring  longevity, 
a  ripe  old  age. 


&8  I  N  T  I-:  RIOR     LI  FE. 

"  For  there  i>  vigor  in  the  mountain  air, 
And  life,  that  bloated  ease  can  never  hope  to  share." 

We  may  misquote  Byron's  words,  but  that  was  at  one 
time  his  sentiment. 

Our  poet-infant  was  bathed  in  "The  Spring,"  our 
poet-boy  was  rocked  on  the  tree-top.  This,  after  he 
had  learned  "to  climb" — which,  even  in  his  Eighth 
Decade  he  lias  not  forgotten.  Infant,  Boy,  Youth, 
Man,  Veteran,  he  has  been  caressed  by  that  genius 
loci — lk  The  Mountain  Wind/1 


\  f 


BOOK     IT 


M  O  S  A  J  C  S-T  HE     OLD. 


THE     OLD     AXD     THE    NEW 


-THE     OLD. 


Site  of  the  Old  School-house. — Boy-Feeling. — Mosaics. — Cas- 
ket of  Thought-Talismans. — The  Poet's  Earlier  Poems 
for  the  Poet's  Earlier  Readers. — Book  IV.,  an  Initi- 
atory Book,  whose  ^Esthetic  Complement  is  Book  A'. 


HATEVER  else  to  the  night  has  gone — 
The  night  that  never  shall  know  a  dawn- 
It  stands  nndiramed  in  my  memory  still, 
The  old  brown  school-house  on  the  hill. 


I  see  the  briers  beside  the  door, 
The  rocks  where  we  played  at  "  keeping  store," 
And  the  steps  we  dug  in  the  bank  below, 
And  the  "  bear-track"  trod  in  the  winter  snow. 


The  names  on  the  weather-boards  are  part 
Of  the  sacred  treasures  of  my  heart  ; 
Some  yet  a  place  with  the  earth-sounds  keep, 
And  some  in  the  holds  of  silence  sleep. 


90  MOSAICS— THE    OLD. 

We  copy  tlif  above  from  a  city  paper;  who  wrote  it 
we  know  not.  A\  e  preserve  it — not  for  its  faultless 
diction,  but  for  its  genuine  boy-feeling.  The  same 
boy-feeling  that  made  Irving  recount  Low  in  youthful 
day- lie  and  his  thoughtless  boy-companions  had  chased 
each  other  around  and  leaped  in  exuberance  of  animal 
spirits  over  the  old  decaying  tombstones  of  the  pioneer 
settlers.  He  relate-,  with  his  accustomed  simple  grace, 
how  he  and  his  young  companions  were  checked  by  the 
grave  sexton.  And  when,  in  after  years,  from  his 
pilgrimage  in  the  world  he  returned  to  the  old  church- 
yard, apparently  a  stranger,  he  finds  a  new  generation 
of  thoughtless,  hilarious  boys  chasing  each  other  as 
he  once  chased  his  playmates,  and  Lo !  the  grave  sexton 
who  reproves  them  with  authoritative  air  and  offended 
mien,  [rvtng  recognizes  as  one  of  his  old  school-fellows. 
Ever  the  Old  and  the  New:  ever  the  New  and  the 
Old. 

BRT  A  N  r's     S( '  I  lOOL-HOUSE. 

Return  we  to  our  motto. — Bryant's  first  schooi-house 
did  not  stand  on  a  hill,  and  the  stanzas  we  have  quoted, 
save  for  the  boy-feeling  before  mentioned,  are  inappro- 
priate. Tin*  objective  1-  false,  bu1  the  symbolic  is 
true.     The  boy-feeling  secures  their  immortality. 

Veterans    who    keep    their    hearts    young    in    their 

Eighth    Decade   think    no    recollections   so    charming 

■ 

as  those  of  their  Infancy.     They  all  join  the  old   French 


MOSAICS  — THE     OLD.  91 

Chanson,  no  matter  how  idly  translated.  One  can 
scarce  take  a  greater  liberty  with  the  original  French 
song  of  "  Forty  years  "  than  the  French  themselves  have 
taken  with  Bryant's  Rivulet* — Le  Petit  Ruissean,  as 
they  name  it ;  yet  they  have  managed  to  serve  up  a 
ragout  of  a  poem  both  tender  and  charming,  though 
retaining  so  little  family  likeness  to  the  old  familiar 
Rivulet  of  the  Homestead,  that  did  we  not  see  the 
original  credited  to  Bryant  we  should  have  imagined 
it  a  French  rill,  flowing  from  a  naturally  French 
spring. 

But  we  wander  from  the  Vale  of  Years.  If  the 
French  take  liberty  with  our  Rivulet  we  will  even  stretch 
their  song  a  decade  or  two.  What  inspires  Forty  years' 
poesy  only  needs  intensifying  to  apply  to  Seventy  years. 
All  the  world  has  learned  that  the  French  know  how 
to  grow  old  with  grace ;  and  here  is  their  original  old 
song  a  decade  or  so  older : — 

There  are  moments  that  make  the  old  heart  again  young, 

Moments  that  make  the  brow  gay ; 
And  they  come  like  the  echo  of  songs  that  were  sung 

In  the  dawn  of  our  infancy's  day : 
Singing — "  Keep  thy  heart  young  Alavay,  Alway  ; 
Keep  thy  heart  young  alway  ! 
Xo  time  for  murmuring,  no  time  for  tears, 
When  we  shall  have  numbered  our  Sevextt  years ; 
We've  weathered  life's  breakers,  life's  cares  and  fears — 
'Tis  the  dolt  ever  mopes  in  the  Vale  of  Years, — 
Now,  Nature  bids  us  be  gay  !" 

*  Beautes  de  la  Poesie  Anglaise :  par  le  Chevalier  de  Chatelain. 


92  MOSAICS  — THE     OLD. 

In  our  Illustration  of  this  hook  our  artist  gives  a 
view  from  the  "Site  of  the  old  School-house,"  where 
the  young  poei  of  Cummington  mastered  the  primary 
elements  of  the  immortal  arts  of  reading  and  writing. 
Whether,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  he  said  his  letters  to  an  old 
dame  who  rewarded  liim  with  sdlded-ringerbread  when 
he  was  good  and  punished  him  with  the  terrible  birch- 
rod  when  he  was  had,  tradition  is  silent.  We  have  our 
own  private  opinion  that  lie  could  not  have  been  a  very 
idle  scholar,  for  the  elements  of  good  old-fashioned 
handwriting,  when  every  letter  was  a  spedalite,  a  dis- 
tinct feature,  are  still  traceable  in  his  chirography.  It  is 
said  that  his  handwriting  hears  a  marked  semblance 
to  that  of  his  father — which  was  peculiarly  distinct  and 
plain.  Be  this  as  it  may,  his  handwriting  has  not 
deteriorated,  for  now  in  his  seventy-fifth  year  he  writes 
a  neater  hand  than  he  did  ten  years  ago.  Instead  of 
the  hurried  stride  of  a  homogeneous  scrawl,  where 
words  are  hieroglyphics  Der  Ilerr  Vbrmann  cannot 
himself  make  out,  Bryant  writes  the  most  individually 
distinct  hand  of  any  man  in  his  office.  His  autograph 
will  be  found  beneath  his  portrait.  A  Perpetual 
Portrait;  we  make  choice  of  the  art  of  the  photog- 
rapher, and  shall  always  try  to  have  represented  the 
latest  portrait  of  the  veteran  minstrel. 

We  give  the  alpha  and  omega  of  our  Illustrations. 
The  Old  and  the  New.  The  large  illustration,  with 
the   leafy    Maples  and    the  graceful   Elm,  the   site  of  the 


MOSAICS  —  THE     OLD.  95 

Old  School-house,  is  the  site  also  of  the  famous  Maple- 
Sugar  Camp, — "  Sugary "  as  it  is  sometimes  called. 
"  Sugary,"  used  as  a  noun,  Webster  says  is  a  new  word. 
But  this  homestead  "  Maple  Sugary  "  is  an  old  feature. 
The  trees  were  found  there  by  Bryant's  maternal  grand- 
father. Many  of  these  maples  were  set  out  by  Bryant 
when  a  mere  youth  :  both  father  and  son  replanted  young 
trees  for  the  Maple  Sugary.  The  trees  are  not  now  fos- 
tered for  their  luscious  sap.  1  rat  their  luxuriant  beauty. 

The  process  of  extracting  and  conserving  the  "  clear 
pure  lymph/'  and  the  gentle  resurrection  of  Nature 
from  her  winter  sleep,  Bryaxt  thus  beautifully  alludes 
to — the  fitting  climax  to  "A  Winter  Piece'/'1 

And  it  is  pleasant,  when  the  noisy  streams 
Are  just  set  free,  and  milder  suns  melt  off 
The  plashy  snow,  save  only  the  firm  drift 
In  the  deep  glen  or  the  close  shade  of  pines, 
'Tis  pleasant  to  behold  the  wreaths  of  smoke 
Roll  up  among  the  maples  of  the  hill, 
AVhere  the  shrill  sound  of  youthful  voices  wakes 
The  shriller  echo,  as  the  clear  pure  lymph, 
That  from  the  wounded  trees,  in  twinkling  drops, 
Falls,  mid  the  golden  brightness  of  the  morn, 
Is  gathered  in  with  brimming  pails,  and  oft, 
Wielded  by  sturdy  hands,  the  stroke  of  axe 
Makes  the  woods  ring.     Along  the  quiet  air, 
Come  and  float  calmly  off  the  soft  light  clouds, 
Such  as  you  see  in  summer,  and  the  winds 
Scarce  stir  the  branches.     Lodged  in  sunny  cleft, 
Where  the  cold  breezes  come  not,  blooms  alone 
The  little  wind-flower,  whose  just  opened  eye 
Is  blue  as  the  spring  heaven  it  gazes  at — 
Startling  the  loiterer  in  the  naked  groves 


96  MOSAICS  —  THE    OLD. 

With  unexpected  beauty,  for  the  time 
Of  blossoms  and  green  leaves  Is  yet  afar. 
And  ere  it  comes,  the  encountering  winds  shall  oft 
Muster  their  wrath  again,  and  rapid  clouds 
Shade  heaven,  and  bounding  on  the  frozen  earth 
Shall  fall  their  volleyed  Btores,  rounded  like  hail 
And  white  like  snow,  and  the  load  North  again 
Shall  buffet  the  vexed  foresi  in  his  rage. 

The  tail-piece  which  will  be  found  at  the  end  of 
this  Book-Chapter,  is  a  view  of  the  new  school-house 
erected  by  Mr.  Bryant  on  a  portion  of  his  domain. 
Whether  any  incipient  young  poets  patronize  the  new 
school-house  we  cannot  stop  to  investigate.  AW  have 
other  matter  on  our  hands. 

AXTHROPOLOOY. 

Emigration  of  ] J a«  ies. — Exodus  <>r   [ndian   a.nd  On-Coming  op 

THE   Saxon. 

The  Nations  come  :  the  Nations  go  : 
The  tidal  billows  ebb  and  flow 
Jusl    ;i>  a  llt<>iis<in<l  HEARS  A.GO  1 

TuL  of  ( '<  nturies. 

Anthropology  has  but  just  began  its  appropriate  work  among 
the  races  of  men.  It  lias  endeavored  to  map  them  out,  t<>  ar- 
range them  into  classes,  and  to  speculate  upon  their  origin. 
*     *     *     Humanity  has  :i-  many  phases  :ts  the  kaleidoscope. 

Dr.  Wilder,  on  Anthropology. 

There  stood  the  Indian  hamlet,  there  the  lake 
Spread  in  blue  sheet  that  flashed  with  many  an  oar. 
Where  the  In-own  otter  plunged  him  from  the  brake, 

And  1  lie  <leer  drank. 


MOSAI  OS  — THE     OLD.  (J7 

Look  now  abroad — another  race  lias  tilled 
These  populous  borders — wide  the  wood  recedes, 
And  towns  shoot  up,  and  fertile  realms  are  tilled: 
The  land  is  full  of  harvests  and  green  meads ; 
Streams  numberless,  that  many  a  fountain  feeds, 
Shine,  disembowered,  and  give  to  sun  and  breeze 
Their  virgin  waters  ;  the  full  region  leads 
Xew  colonies  forth,  that  toward  the  western  sea- 
Spread,  like  a  rapid  flame  among  the  autumnal  trees. 

Bryant's  Ages. 

The  local,  tlie  key^  to  the  universal.  We  treat 
of  Races,  and  Thanatop-sis  is  the  requiem  or  earth- 
tomb  phase  of  all  the  race  of  man  !  Legitimately  it 
belongs  to  that  portion  of  our  book  which  treats  of 
the  Xew  World  races.  The  grand  Humanitarian 
earth-phase.  The  Sixth  Day's  Creation.  The  past, 
the  present,  and  the  future  :  antiquity,  the  present,  and 
posterity.     Thanatopsis    is    Anthropological. 

THIS    IMMORTALITY    OF    BRYAXTS. X    P.    WILLIS. 

Of  the  three  poets  of  our  school-days, — Bryant, 
Halleck,  and  AVillis, — Bryant,  the  eldest,  alone  re- 
mains. If  we  are  foolish  over  his  old  homestead 
we  may  be  pardoned.  It  is  not  every  Veteran  in  his 
Eighth  Decade  who  has  two  generations  at  work 
for  him:  whose  only  trouble  is  that  lie  cannot  undo 
the  work  quite  so  fast  as  they  do  it.  \Ve  shall  get 
a  little  in  print  yet  in  spite  of  his  scissoring;  and 
if  our  motley  book  show  like  the  costly  Indian  shawls 
that  bear  one  unfinished  corner  which  by  no   art   can 

13 


98  MOSAICS  — THE     OLD. 

be  made  to  match  the  rest  of  the  mosaic-pattern,     why  1 
Just  ><»  much   is   it   the  more   valuable.     Connoisseurs 
understand   the   mark  of  the  Calcutta    Bouse. 
Inn   we  started  to  tell  of  poor  Willis. 

Musk  ;  ob  Requiem-Phase  of   Thanatopsis. — The  late  N.   1*. 
Willis,  father  of  the  thought. 

How  true  it  is  that  a  genuine  thought  can  be  ex- 
pressed by  various  wands  of  art, — can  be  translated 
into  various  tonus  of  language!  Willis,  the  poet — 
the  sensitive  -was  thrilled  with  the  startling  idea  that 
will  come  home  to  us  of  the  Great  Axl-Tomb,  on 
Bearing,  after  the  poem  had  become  of  world-wide 
fame,  that  the  ground-thought  of  Thanatopsis  had 
been  suggested  by  Indian  remains.  That  the  local 
was  the  key  to  the  universal.  Psychologically,  Willis 
was  in  very  low  health  when  the  paper  containing  what 
the  writer  then  deemed  the  origin  of  Thanatopsis  was 
laid  before  him.  As  if  that  mysterious  power  that 
inspired  Mozart's  Last  Requiem  had  chosen  Willis 
for  one  of  its  visitations,  the  thoughl  never  left  him 
till  lie  joined   the  innumerable  caravan. 

Willis  little  thought  when  he  penned  the  intro- 
duction to  our  crude  paper  that  he  was  describing 
the  music-phase  of  Thanatopsis,  and  that  already  his 
sensitive  ear  had  caught  the  Requiem  Maboh  to 
the  Great  All-Tomb.  The  innumerable  caravan 
spoken  of  in  that    poem  belongs    to  that  class  of  con- 


MOSAICS  — THE     OLD.  :»'.• 

captions  expressed  by  "The  Day  of  Judgment"  of 
Michael  Axoelo  (Painting),  "The  Dance  of  Death,'1 
Holbein  (Basso-Rilievo),  Bridge  of  Basle  (commemo- 
rating the  Plague),  "Dieslrae"  (Poetry.  13th  century, 
Gothic  type),  and  Mozabt's  Requiem  (Music,  nearing 
modern  times).  With  Willis  the  conception  took  the 
music  phase.  Why  does  Willis  think  of  Bryant  as 
he  listens  to  the  Beecher  organ* 

THE    GRAM)    IIOMESTEAD-POEM THANATOPSIS. 

The  Blue  Rocks  of  Cummington^  the   key-stone   of 
"  the  Gtbeat  Tomb  of  Max!*' 

The  hills 
Rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  bud, — the  vales 
Stretching  in  pensive  quietness  between  ; 

The  venerable  woods 

%  *  *  ^ 

Are  but  the  solemn  decorations  all 
Of  the   Great  Tomb  of  Max. 

Thanatppsis. 

APOSTROPHE     TO    THE    SETTING    SUN,    WHEREIN    HE    IMMORTALIZES    A 
DECLINING    RACE. 

I  stand  upon  their  ashes,  in  thy  beam. 
The  offspring  of  another  race,  I  stand 
Beside  a  stream  thev  loved. 

A  Walk  at  Sunset. 

A  noble  race  !  but  they  are  gone, 

With  their  old  forests  wild  and  deep, 

And  we  have  built  our  homes  upon 
Fields  where  their  generations  sleep. 

*  Alluding  to  a  remarkable  editorial  of  N.  P.   Willis— Home  Journal 
Aug.  8.  1866. 


1<MJ  M  OSAICS      THE     OLD. 

Their  fountains  Blake  our  thirst  al  noon, 
Upon  their  fields  our  harvest  waves, 

Our  lovers  woo  beneath  their  moon — 
Then  let  us  spare,  ;it  Least,  their  graves! 

Tin  Disinterred  Warrior. 

And  they  that  spring  from  thee  shall  build  the  ancienl  ruin- ; 
The  foundations  of  old  times  shall  they  raise  uj> : 
And  thou  >lialt  be  called  the  repairer  of  the  broken  mound; 
The  restorer  of  paths  to  be  frequented  by  inhabitants. 

Low  in"s  Isaiah. 

The  old  Israelitish  seer  Avails  over  the  desolation 
wrought  by  the  Ire  of  the  unpronounceable  Jah,  which 
had  turned  man  and  his  habitation  to  dust  of  the  earth. 
But  he  foretells  that  a  new  race  shall  arise  and  rebuild 
the  mounds  and  restore  the   paths! 

Thanatopsis  is  Earth's  Universal  Requiem.  It  is 
the  Funeral  March  of  the  Past,  the  Present,  and  the 
Future.  This  is  the  music  phase.  Poor  Willis 
evolved  that  idea. 

Tiiaxatopsis  was  written  at  the  Homestead:  and 
as  with  this  familiar  and  never-to-be-worn-out  poem, 
tin-  Greek — Indian — American  dirge,  the  legitimate 
career  of  our  poel  commence-,  we  deem  it  reverent 
to  give  it  place  among  Homestead  associations,  and  to 
tell  all  we  know  of  its  origin.  Bryant  was  in  his 
eighteenth  <>r  perhaps  nineteenth  year  when  he  wrote 
it,  and  it  was  lir>t  published  in  the  North  American 
Review  in  L816.  The  perspective  of  his  mind  was 
toned  1>\  the  classic  Greek.  He  was  a  mature  scholar 
though  ;i  youthful  poet,  noi  yet  arrived  to  man's  estate. 


MOSAICS— THE     OLD.  lOl 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THE    OBJECTIVE    AXD    THE    SUBJECTIVE. 

Genius    is    rarely    self-conscious    of  his    powers;    is 

not  given  to  analyzing  liis  own  philosophy.  Our  Vet- 
eran himself  would  probably  he  surprised  were  we  to 
suggest  that  the  consolation  of  Tlianatopsis  consisted  in 
the  harmonious  play  of  two  antagonistic  philosophemes  ! 
Thus  : — he  bids  us  nee  morbid  introspection  when  it 
becomes  soul-harrowing  and  tends  to  waste  the  frail 
casket  of  clay.  He  then  bids  us  seek  and  trust  like 
a  fond  believing  child  to  the  Recuperative  Forces  of 
Nature.  He  rings  the  changes  on  the  life  within  and 
life  without.  From  Introspection  he  woidd  have  us 
vault  to  Observation. 

INTROSPECTION   FOILED    BY    OBSERVATION. 

Wheo  thoughts 
Of  the  last  bitter  hour  come  like  a  blight 
Over  thy  spirit,  and  sad  images 
Of  the  stern  agony,  and  shroud,  and  pall, 
And  breathless  darkness,  and  the  narrow  house, 
Make  thee  to  shudder,  and  grow  sick  at  heart ; — 
Go  forth,  under  the  open  sky,  and  list 
To  Nature's  teachings. 


To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she  speaks 
A  A'arious  language;  for  his  gayer  hours 
She  has  a  voice  of  gladness,  and  a  smile 
And  eloquence  of  beauty,  and  she  glides 
Into  his  darker  musings,  with  a  mild 
And  healing  sympathy,  that  steals  away 
Their  sharpness,  ere  he  is  aware. 


1()()  MOSAICS  — THE     OLD. 

Their  fountains  slake  our  thirst  at  noon. 
Upon  their  lieltls  our  harvest  waves, 

Our  lovers  woo  beneath  their  moon — 
Then  let  us  spare,  at  least,  their  graves! 

Th<  Disinterred  Warrior. 

And  they  that  Bp  ring  from  thee  shall  build  the  ancient  ruins; 
Tin'  foundations  of  old  times  shall  they  raise  up  : 
And  thou  shah  be  called  the  repairer  of  the  broken  mound; 
The  restorer  of  paths  to  be  frequented  by  inhabitants. 

Lowth's  Isaiah. 

The  old  Israelitish  seer  wails  over  the  desolation 
wrought  by  the  ire  of  the  unpronounceable  Jah,  which 
had  turned  man  and  his  habitation  to  dust  of  the  earth. 
Bui  he  foretells  that  a  new  race  shall  arise  and  rebuild 
the    mounds   and    restore   the    paths! 

Thanatopsis  is  Earth's  Universal  Requiem,  h  is 
the  Funeral  March  of  the  Past,  the  Present,  and  the 
Future.  This  is  the  music  phase.  Poor  Willis 
evolved  that  idea. 

Tiiaxatopsis  was  written  at  the  Homestead;  and 
a-  with  this  familiar  and  ne\er-tod>e- worn-out  poem, 
thi-  Greek — Indian — American  dirge,  the  legitimate 
career  of  our  poet  commences,  we  deem  it  reverent 
to  give  it  place  among  Homestead  associations,  and  to 
tell  ,-dl  we  know  of  its  origin.  Bryant  was  in  his 
eighteenth  or  perhaps  nineteenth  year  when  lie  wrote 
ii.  and  it  was  lirst  published  in  the  North  American 
Review  in  L816.  The  perspective  of  his  mind  was 
toned  by  the  classic  Greek.  He  was  ;i  mature  scholar 
though  a  youthful  poet,  n«>t  ye1  arrived  to  man's  estate. 


MOSAICS— THE     OLD.  1()1 


PHILOSOPHY    OF    THE    OBJECTIVE    AXD    THE    SUBJECTIVE. 

(ienius  is  rarely  self-conscious  of  his  powers ;  is 
not  given  to  analyzing  his  own  philosophy.  Our  Vet- 
eran himself  would  probably  be  surprised  were  we  to 
suggest  that  the  consolation  of  Thanatopsis  consisted  in 
the  harmonious  play  of  two  antagonistic  philosophemes  ! 
Thus  : — he  bids  us  flee  morbid  introspection  when  it 
becomes  soul-harrowing  and  tends  to  waste  the  frail 
casket  of  clay.  He  then  bids  us  seek  and  trust  like 
a  fond  believing  child  to  the  Recuperative  Forces  of 
Nature.  He  rino:s  the  changes  on  the  life  within  and 
life  without.  From  Introspection  he  would  have  us 
vault  to  Observation. 

INTROSPECTION    FOILED    BY    OBSERVATION. 

When  thoughts 
Of  the  last  bitter  hour  come  like  a  blight 
Over  thy  spirit,  and  sad  images 
Of  the  stern  agony,  and  shroud,  and  pall, 
And  breathless  darkness,  and  the  narrow  house, 
Make  thee  to  shudder,  and  grow  sick  at  heart ; — 
Go  forth,  under  the  open  sky,  and  list 
To  Xature's  teachings. 

To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she  speaks 
A  various  language  ;  for  his  gayer  hours 
She  has  a  voice  of  gladness,  and  a  smile 
And  eloquence  of  beauty,  and  she  glides 
Into  his  darker  musings,  with  a  mild 
And  healing  sympathy,  that  steals  away 
Their  sharpness,  ere  he  is  aware. 


L02  MOSAICS  — THE     OLD. 

It  was  here  in  Cumrnington,  a\  liiU*  wandering  in  the 
primeval  forests  over  the  floor  of  which  were  scattered 
the  gigantic  trunks  of  fallen  trees,  mouldering  for  long 
years  and  suggesting  an  indefinitely  remote  antiquity, 
and  where  Bilenl  rivulets  crept  along  through  the  carpet 
of  dead  Leaves,  the  spoil  of  thousands  of  summers;  that 
the  poem  entitled  llianatopsis  was  composed.  The 
young  poet  had  read  the  poems  of  Kirke  White,  which 
edited  by  Southet  were  published  about  that  time, 
and  a  small  volume  of  Southey's  miscellaneous  poems, 
and  some  lines  of  these  authors  had  kindled  his  imagi- 
nation,  which  going  forth  over  the  face  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  globe  sought  to  bring  under  one  broad  and 
comprehensive  view,  the  destinies  of  the  human  race  in 
the  present  life  and  the  perpetual  rising  and  passing 
away  of  generation  after  generation  who  are  nourished 
by  the  fruits  of  its  soil  and  find  a  resting-place  in  its 
bosom.     As  at  first  written  it  began  with  the  half-line, 

"  Yd  a  few  (lays 

and   ended   with  the  half-line, 

"  And  make  their  bed  with  thee." 

In  this  state  it  was  found  by  the  poet's  father  a1 
Cummington  among  some  other  manuscripts,  after  his 
><>n  had  left  the  place  t<>  reside  elsewhere,  lie  took  it 
to  the  editors  of  the  X<>rt1<  Arm  ri$an  Review ',  then  a 
monthly  periodical,  in  which  it  appeared.  Afterwards, 
when  in  L821,  and  after  his  father's  death,  he  published 


MOSAICS  — THE     OLD.  103 

a  little  volume  of  poems  at  Cambridge,  the  poet  added 
the  sixteen  lines  with  which  the  poem  begins  and  the 
fifteen  with  which  it  closes.     In  this  poem  he  speaks  of 

"  Old  ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste," 

but  he  had  not  then  seen  the  ocean,  any  more  than  he 

had  seen  the  solitudes  of  Oregon  through  which  winds 

seaward   the  river  now  foolishly  named  Columbia,  on 

the  banks  of  which  towns  and  cities  are  beginning  to 

arise. 

Where  rolls  the  Oregan,  and  hears  no  sound, 
Save  his  own  dashings — yet — the  dead  are  there  : 
And  millions  in  those  solitudes,  since  first 
The  flight  of  years  began,  have  laid  them  down 
In  their  last  sleep — the  dead  reign  there  alone. 

CLIMAX-THOUGHTS     OF     THAXATOPSIS. 

The  "  sad  sweet  music  of  humanity." 
The  whisper  of  the  Guardian  Angel. 

THE    CARAVAN-THOUGHT. 

So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravax,  which  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm,  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  the  quarry  slave  at  night 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon  ! 

Pause :  we  want  breath  to  fix  this  scenarium  in  our 
mind.  Here  is  nascent  drama.  This  climax  is  a  du- 
ality; an  antithesis. 


104  MOSAICS  — THE     OLD. 

THE    DREAM    THOl  OH  I. 

But,  sustained  :m<l  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave, 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams. 

"  How  long  may  be  that  dream  beneath  the  mould 
When  we  arc  covered  by  earth's  mantle  o'er?" 

Will  the  sleep  of  the  grave  put  a  stop  t<>  soul- 
progression?  When  this  fleshy  tabernacle  together 
with  the  subtle  ties  that  unite  Dual  Human  Nature 
are  dissolved — when  elements  modified  by  the  accident 
of  life,  which  is  a  mere  circumstance,  are  resolved  to 
their  primal  powers — where  will  the  soul  be  accommo- 
dated I  Where  is  the  suprasensual  realm  of  thought 
and  feeling  I  We  read  Bryant's  Thanatopsis  and  we 
exclaim  with  Byron's  Dante — in  his  own  weird  terza 
rima — 

"A  thousand  years  which  yet  supine 
Lie  like  the  ocean  waves  ere  winds  arise, 
Heaving  in  dark  and  sullen  undulation, 
Float  from  eternity  into  these  eyes  |" 

And  how  many  THOUSAND  k'  thousand-years  prophecy 
of  Dante"  will  roll  over  Bryant's  earth-tomb?  His 
grand  Anthropological  Cairn  for  all  of  mortal  clay! 

Who  can  tell?  What  is  Dies  Iim:<  Do  (dements 
need  rest?  Is  Dies  Ir;e  the  final  examination:  and 
will  the  soul,  the  Life-Pupil,  be  put  hack  or  forward 
according  to  progression  in  Life- Apprenticeship \  Put 
back  to  Primal  Nonentity  at  final  Revision? 


MOSAICS  — THE     OLD.  105 

How  long  may  be  that  dream  \     Ages,  or  moments  ? 

"Who  can  tell?    for  who  can  hear 
Tidings  from  the  spirits  there  ?" 

Dante  could  !  The  stern  of  lineament,  the  grim, — 
the  father  old  of  Tuscan  song — could  bear  revelations 
from  the  realm  of  the  suprasensual.  A  type  of 
Apocalypse  St.  Joiix,  was  Daxte  Alighteri.  He 
grappled  with  the  Intangible.  Verily — Thanatopsis  is 
a  weird  poem.  We  never  muse  over  it  without  evolv- 
ing some  new  phase  of  our  common  earth-mound. 

The  poem  stops  at  the  Dream  of  the  Grave  ;  and 
wisely,  Reader  :  we  have  seen  letters  written  to  Bry- 
ant in  his  Eighth  Decade,  asking  him  tq  finish  Than- 
atopsis with  Immortality.     Why  does  he  not? 

Art  has  its  limitations.  Between  the  Innumerable 
Caravan  and  Immortality  comes  the  Dream  of  the  Grave ! 

Then  Bryant  does  not  believe  in  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  i 

Reader  :  what  would  you  have  ?  He  has  hope, 
hope — that 

"  He  that  made  us  with  such  large  discourse, 
Looking  before,  and  after,  gave  us  not 
That  capability  and  godlike  reason 
To  fust  in  us  unused." 

If  used  it  is  preserved.  Like  Schiller,  our  Bard 
is  a  soul-progressionalist.  He  has  faith  : — faith  that 
the  All- Absorber  will  re-create  the    soul    anew  after 

14 


L06  HOS-AIOS      THE    OLD. 

this  toilsome  life-pilgrimage  and  dual  apprenticeship,  in 
what  phase  seemeth  to  Him  best.  What  would  you 
more?     From  out  of  Hope  and  Faith  evolve  Belief 

The  Bymbolism  of  our  Initial  cover  device  is  the 
Heraldry  of  two  nations,  the  Exodus  of  the  India* 
and  the  On-Coming  of  the  Saxon-Clan. 

CONCLUDING    REMARKS. 

Severe  as  the  climate  of  the  region  is  in  which 
Bryant  passed  Ids  school-boy  days,  the  summers  were 
delightful :  and  even  in  late  autumn,  in  his  birth-month 
November,  there  were  intervals  of  warmth  and  bright- 
aess,  sunshiny  days  when  the  elements  were  in  re. 
pose  and  when  the  season  which  Longfellow,  in  his 
Evangeline,  calls  the  summer  of  All  Saints,  was  enjoyed 
in  its  perfection.  This  the  poet  has  portrayed  in  his 
Sonnet  entitled  November.  The  illustration-  of  this 
hook  are  all  drawn  from  objects  seen  in  the  leafy 
months.  We  Leave  to  the  poet  himself  to  depict  the 
Sabbath  stillness,  the  universal  repose,  the  hare,  leaf- 
less, russet  landscape  sleeping  in  the  genial  sunshine 
just  before  the  arrival  of  the  frost  and  storms  of 
winter. 

NOVEMBER. 

Yet  one  smile  more,  departing,  diManl  Mm  ! 

One  mellow  smile  through  the  Bofl  vapory  air, 
Ere,  o'er  the  frozen  earth,  the  1<>u<1  winds  run, 

Or  Bnows  are  sifted  o'er  tin*  meadow--  bare. 


M  0  S  A  I  C  S  —  T  II  E     OLD.  10? 

One  smile  on  the  brown  hills  and  naked  trees. 

And  the  dark  rocks  whose  summer  wreaths  are  east 
And  the  blue  gentian  flower,  that,  in  the  breeze, 

Xods  lonely,  of  her  beauteous  race  the  last. 
Yet  a  few  sunny  days,  in  which  the  bee 

Shall  murmur  by  the  hedge  that  skirts  the  way, 
The  cricket  chirp  upon  the  russet  lea, 

And  man  delight  to  linger  in  thy  ray. 
Yet  one  rich  smile,  and  we  will  try  to  bear 
The  piercing  winter  frost,  and  winds,  and  darkened  air. 

This  region  of  wild  forests  and  solitary  o-lens  and 
rugged  hill-sides,  in  which  Bryant's  early  school-days 
were  passed,  but  which  before  the  settlers  of  the  Euro, 
pean  stock  hewed  down  its  trees  and  brought  it  under 
cultivation,  was  a  vast  woodland,  with  not  a  single 
opening,  and  little  visited  by  the  Indian  tribes,  except 
in  the  hunting  season,  suggests  by  the  mere  force  of  con- 
trast, those  regions  of  the  old  world  which  were  after- 
wards visited  by  the  poet ;  and  to  which,  amid  his 
wanderings  and  travels,  we  shall  allude  in  the  next 
book — premising  that  our  traveller  himself  observed 
the  injunction  he  so  emphatically  gave  his  friend 
Cole. 

Bryant's  Sonnet  to  Cole,  on  his  departure  for 
Europe,  one  of  the  tinest  of  the  few  personal  tributes 
to  be  found  among  his  poems,  contains  four  lines  of 
concise  ,w  seizing  upon  the  individual  in  objects,"  ex- 
pressed with  a  terseness  and  vigor  rarely  equalled  and 
never  excelled.  We  quote  the  sonnet  for  its  pure  Ameri- 
can sentiment,  and  we  emphasize  the  lines  alluded  to, 


L08 


M  0SA1  OS—  TH  E    0  I.  D 


that  the  reader  may  refresh  his  memory  with  the  paint- 
ings of  Cole  rendered  by  the  pen  of  Bryant. 

TO    COLE,    THE    PAINTER,    DEPARTING     FOR    EUROPE. 

Thine  eyes  shall  sec  the  light  of  distant  skies  : 

Yet,  Cole  !  thy  heart  shall  bear  to  Europe's  strand 
A  living  image  of  our  own  bright  land, 

Such  as  upon  thy  glorious  canvas  lies  ; 

Lom  lakes—savannas  where  the  bison  roves — 
Hock*  rich  with  summer  garlands — solemn  streams — 
Skies,  where  the  desert  eagle  wheels  and  screams — 

Spring  bloom  and  autumn  blaze  ofJtoundless  groves. 

Fair  scenes  shall  greet  thee  where  thou  goest — fair, 
But  different — everywhere  the  trace  of  men, 
1 'at lis,  homes,  graves,  ruins,  from  the  lowest  glen 

To  where  life  shrinks  from  the  tierce  Alpine  air. 
Gaze  on  them,  till  the  tears  shall  dim  thy  sight, 
But  keep  that  earlier,  wilder  image  bright. 


BOOK    V. 


MOSAIOS-THE    NEW 


THE     OLD     AND     THE    NEW. THE     NEW. 

Mosaics. — Elemental  Gleanings. — A  Casket  of  Thought- 
Talismans. — Wanderings,  Travels,  and  Gleanings,  from 
Many  Lands. 


HE    FIRMAMENT    was  ever  with 
Bryant  a  loving  study. 

"  And  contemplation,  sweeping  to  the  far, 
Speaks  to  the  eyes  commercing  with  the  sun." 

Schiller. 

To  the  atmosphere  of  either  the  material  or  spiritual 
world  he  is  keenly  sensitive.  The  changes  of  the 
seasons — the  phenomena  that  mark  the  flight  of 
time — he  lives  them.  This,  may  appear  a  trivial  and 
commonplace  sentence.  It  is  ;  but  we  will  not  erase  it. 
Even  the  commonplace  has  its  value.  If  the  French 
teach  us  respect  for  the  trivial,  the  Germans  teach  us 
the  value  of  the  commonplace.     The  German  recpiires 


110  MLOSAIOS  — T  HE     N  K  W  . 

earnestness,  grandeur  of  thought,  and  dignity  of  senti- 
ment; and  these  the  descendant  of  the  old  "Earth- 
worshipping  Teuton"  manages  to  evolve  from  the 
commonplace  phenomena  of  daily  life.  Hundreds 
uever  think  of  the  phenomena  that  mark  the  seasons: 
or,  if  they  note  them,  fail  to  read  the  lesson  of  the  hour  ; 
to  note  tin4  latent  poetry  of  the  moment;  to  fathom  the 
subtle  symbolism  that  makes  the  moment  more  than 
fleeting;  that  transfixes  it  in  its  flight. 

Return  we  to  the  Homestead.  The  view  from  the 
piazza  is  at  times  wonderfully  magnificent ;  an  amphi- 
theatre of  mountains  encircling  for  one  half  the  horizon 
with  farm  and  forest,  glen  and  gorge,  shaded  or  brought 
into  light  by  flitting  clouds,  or  in  autumn  emblazoned 
with  hues  so  successfully  rendered  by  the  rich  cha- 
meleon-palette of  Cropsey.  No  wonder  the  youthful 
poel  drank  dee])  draughts  of  aerial  perspective,  no 
wonder  that  he  looked  with  eyes  of  love  upon  "the 
magnificent  temple  of  the  sky."  No  wonder  the 
mirror  of  Uis  mind   took   in   the   Firmament.* 

THE    FIKMAMENT. 

Ay  !  gloriously  thou  Btandest  there, 

Beautiful,  boundless  firmament  ! 
That,  8 welling  wide  o'er  earth  and  air, 

And  round  the  horizon  bent, 
With  thy  bright  vault,  and  sapphire  wall, 
\)o>\  overhang  and  circle  all. 

Written  before  Bryanl  had  travelled;  yet  his  attachment  to  hianative 
skv  has  never  Buffered  chance. 


MOSAICS— THE, NEW.  1 1  1 

Far,  far  below  thee,  tall  gray  trees 

Arise,  and  piles  built  up  of  old, 
And  hills,  whose  ancient  summits  freeze 

In  the  fierce  light  and  cold. 
The  eagle  soars  his  utmost  height, 
Yet  far  thou  stretchest  o'er  his  nio-ht. 


The  sun,  the  gorgeous  sun  is  thine, 

The  pomp  that  brings  and  shuts  the  day, 
The  clouds  that  round  him  change  and  shine. 


The  airs  that  fan  his  way 
hence  look  the  thoughtful 
The  meek  moon  walks  the  silent  air. 


Thence  look  the  thoughtful  stars,  and  there 


The  sunny  Italy  may  boast 

The  beauteous  tints  that  flush  her  skies, 

And  lovely,  round  the  Grecian  coast, 
May  thy  blue  pillars  rise. 

I  only  know  how  fair  they  stand 

Around  my  own  beloved  land. 

We  can  now  understand  why  that  exquisite,  often 
quoted,  and  never-to-Le-worn-out  distich, 

Hung  high  the  glorious  sun  and  set 
Night's  cressets  in  their  arch  of  jet, 

sprang  so  spontaneously  from  the  poet-soul. 

From  his  favorite  window  (eastward)  you  look  at 
a  vast  extent  of  country;  the  land  in  front  slopes 
rapidly  eastward  to  the  deep  glen  in  which  flows 
the  north  fork  of  the  Westfield  River,  and  rises  on  the 
other  side,  where  you  see  farm  after  farm  with  their 
dwellings,    and  here    and   there    a    church,   and   russet 


112  MOSAICS  —  T  II  E     N  E  W  . 

pastures,  and    green    mowing    Lands   interspersed  with 

woods.      Iii    tliis   valley,    at    morning,  you    sometimes 

see  .-in  ocean  of  fog,  with  nearly  a  level  surface, 
above  which  appear  the  eminences  with  their  fields 
and  trees  and  sometimes  a  dwelling,  like  islands  in 
that  sea  of  cloud.  This  phase  of  the  scenarium  reminds 
lis  of  a   passage  in  Schiller's    William  Tell : — 

"  Beneath  him  an  ocean  of  mist,  where  his  eye 
No  Longer  the  dwellings  of  man  can  espy." 

This  mist-cloud  perspective  reminds  us  also  of  the 
familiar  lines  of  Milton: — 

"Ye  mists  and  exhalations  that  now  rise 
From  hill  or  streaming  lake,  dusky  or  gray, 
Till  the  sun  paint  your  fleecy  skirts  with  gold. 
In  honor  of  the  world's  great  author,  rise  I" 

We  confess  that  Milton  was  never  a  great  favorite 
with  idle  scholars  in  school-days,  we  having  to  "parse" 
his  Paradise  Lost;  when  we  devoutly  wished  his 
Paradise  was  indeed  "lost,"  never  to  he  found!  We 
also  had  to  "parse1'  something  else,  which  we  will  tell 


- 


about   in   another  place. 


The  w*  Viiim;    Poet"  as  well  as   the  "Veteran,"  w    Early 
Rises. — Day-dawn    at    the    Homestead. — Young:    Byron 

A  \|i      Vol    \<.      IllIY  \\T. 

"Still  in  each  step  that  man  ascends  to  light 
Fie  bears  the  art  that  lir>t  inspired  the  flight; 
And  still  the  teeming  nature  to  his  gaze, 
The  wealth  he  gives  her  with  new  worlds  repays." 

S.  mi  LBR, 


M  OSAICS-THE     N  E  W  .  113 

One  of  our  poet's  comparatively  juvenile  poems : 
yet  one  with  a  thoughtfully  antedating  climax  of  the 
Veteran.  Pause,  reader,  and  scan  the  juvenescent 
rhythm.      The  same   swimrinar,  joyous,   fantastic,  effer- 

vescing  cadenza  as  Byron,  the  young  Highlander,  seized 
upon  when  he  sang,  in  his  most  wholesome  strain,  the 
praise  of  his  native  mountains  !  Ah  !  those  were  indeed 
good  old  days,  when  it  was  not  deemed  vulgar  to  he 
robust.  Afterward,  Byron  the  Sybarite, — Lord  Byron, 
we  mean, — the  self-torturer,  whom  a  crumpled  rose-leaf 
could  annoy,  perhaps  did  not  rise  so  early. 

WHEN    I    ROVED    A    YOUNG    HIGHLANDER. 

"  When  I  roved  a  young  Highlander  o'er  the  dark  heath, 
And  climbed  thy  steep  summit,  0  Morven  of  snow  ! 

To  gaze  on  the  torrent  that  thundered  beneath, 
Or  the  mist  of  the  tempest  that  gathered  below, 

I  arose  with  the  dawn  :    with  my  dog  as  my  guide, 
From  mountain  to  mountain  I  bounded  along  ; 

I  breasted  the  billows  of  Dee's  rushing  tide. 


And  heard  at  a  distance  the  Highlander's  song." 


BYRON. 


BAY-DA  WX     AT    THE     HOMESTEAD. YOUNG     BRYAXT. 

"when*  the  firmament  quivers  with  daylight's  young 

BEAM." 

When  the  firmament  quivers  with  daylight's  young  beam. 

And  the  woodlands  awaking  burst  into  a  hymn, 
And  the  glow  of  the  sky  blazes  back  from  the  stream, 

How  the  bright  ones  of  heaven  in  the  brightness  srrow  dim. 


114  KOSAICS  —  THE     N  E  W  . 

()li !  'tis  sad,  in  that  moment  of  glory  and  song, 

T<>  Bee,  while  the  hill-tops  arc  waiting  the  sun. 
The  glittering  hand  thai  kept  watch  all  night  long 

O'er  Love  and  o'er  Slumber,  go  out  one  by  one  : 

Till  the  circle  of  ether,  deep,  ruddy,  and  vast, 

Scarce  glimmers  with  one  of  the  train  that  were  there 

•And  their  leader  the  day-star,  the  brightest  and  last, 
Twinkles  faintly  and  fades  in  that  desert  of  air. 


Let  them  fade — but  we'll  pray  that  the  age,  in  whose  flight, 

Of  ourselves  and  our  friends  the  remembrance  shall  die, 
.May  rise  o'er  the  world,  with  the  gladness  and  light 

Of  the  morning  that  withers  the  stars  from  the  sky. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"The  Rich  varieties  of  Soulful  Sound." 
Hut  there  is  one  charm  of  The  Firmament  which 
no  art  of  the  pencil  can  give  us — the  song  of  flu* 
bob-o'-lini  in  June,  the  holiday  of  the  year,  when  he 
rises  Binging  from  tin*  grass,  and  fills  the  air  with  his 
joyous,  almosi  defiant  note,  and  descends  into  the  grass 
again  when  his  song  is  ended,  completing  his  flight  and 
}\\<  lay  at  the  same  moment.  The  region  in  which  the 
Homestead  lies  is  much  visited  by  these  birds,  and 
nowhere  is  their  song  more  frequently  heard  than  here, 
in  June,  that  holiday  of  the  year  when  a  perfeci  chorus 
of  birds  rises  from  the  meadows.  Our  Initial  represents 
the  bob-o'-link  on  the  spray — "merrily  s\vin<:•in<r.,, 

1  J  .  O        o 


MOSAICS  — THE     NEW.  115 

ROBERT     OF     LINCOLN. 

Merrily  swinging  on  brier  and  weed, 
Near  to  the  nest  of  his  little  dame, 
Over  the  mountain-side  or  mead, 

Robert  of  Lincoln  is  telling  his  name  : 
Bob-o'-link,  bob-o'-link, 
Spink,  spank,  spink ; 
Snug  and  safe  is  that  nest  of  ours, 
Hidden  among  the  summer  flowers. 
Chee,  chee,  chee. 

The  Veteran,  tliougli  he  has  wandered  in  many 
lands,  has  never  forgotten  the  music  of  his  native 
Rivulet.  For  him  it  has  various  chimes  the  world 
over.     This  is  one  chime. 

THE    STREAM    OF    LIFE. 

Oh  silvery  streamlet  of  the  fields, 

That  flowest  full  and  free  ! 
For  thee  the  rains  of  spring  return, 

The  summer  dews  for  thee ; 
And  when  thy  latest  blossoms  die 

In  autumn's  chilly  showers, 
The  winter  fountains  gush  for  thee, 

Till  May  brings  back  the  flowers. 

Oh  Stream  of  Life  !  the  violet  springs 

But  once  beside  thy  bed  ; 
But  one  brief  summer,  on  thy  path 

The  dews  of  heaven  are  shed. 
Thy  parent  fountains  shrink  away 

And  close  their  crystal  veins, 
And  where  thv  srlitterinor  current  flowed 

The  dust  alone  remains. 


116  M  0.S  Ales       r  II  K     X  E  W  . 

Here  arc  a  cluster  of  Rivulet  Chimes,  very  Ger- 
manic; very  allegoric^  yery" musical ;  very  wise;  almost 
equal  to  song  -"Dost  thou  idly  ask  to  bear."  a  great 
favorite  once.  The  Veteran's  last  "  Rivulet "  version. 
— Later  Poem  Refrain* 

ENIGMA. 

The  pretty  stream,  the  placid  stream, 

The  softly-gliding^  bashful  stream. 

The  pretty  stream,  the  flattered  stream, 

The  shy, "yet  unreluctaut  stream. 

The  flattered  stream,  the  simpering  stream. 

The  fond,  delighted,  silly  stream. 

The  flattered  stream,  the  cheated  stream, 

The  sad,  forsaken,  lonely  stream. 

The  cheated  stream,  the  hopeless  stream, 

The  over-murmuring,  mourning  stream. 

Wherein  our  Celtic  Druid  plays  Grecian  ^Eolus. 
Shakspeare  is  right :  "  a  man  plays  many  parts/' 

"  ^EoLrs,  the  king  of  storms  and  winds,  reigned 
over  ^Eolia;  and  because  he  was  the  inventor  of 
sails,  and  a  great  astronomer,  the  poets  have  called  him 
the  god  of  the  winds.  The  name  seems  to  be  derived 
from  aiohog,  various^  because  the  winds  over  which  he 
presided  are  ever  varying"     Lempriire. 

u  JEolus.  He  is  represented  in  Homer  as  the  happy 
ruler  over  the  iEolian  islands,  to  whom  Zeus  had 
given  dominion  over  the  winds,  which  he  might 
soothe  or  excite  according  to  his  pleasure.  This 
statement     of    Homer    and    etymology    of   the    name 


MOSAICS  — THE     NEW.  H9 

^Eolus,  from  ae/l/lco,  led  to  iEolus  being  regarded  in 
later  times  as  the  god  and  king  of  the  winds,  which 
he  kept  inclosed  in  a  mountain." — Dr.  Win.  Smith's 
Classical  Dictionary. 

All  this  is  highly  instructive.  Why  cannot  we 
have  a  Temple  of  Winds  as  well  as  the  Athenians  ? 
We  mean  the  Grecian  Athenians — not  the  Bostonian 
Athenians.     They  have  their  Colosseum. 

WINDS    AND    WAVES. 

The  element  water  is  undoubtedly  a  great  educator, 
refiner,  strengthener,  and  evolver.  We  are  not  now 
speaking  of  plunge  baths  in  Mountain  Springs,  but 
veritable  voyagings,  dreamings,  reveries,  and  poetizings, 
on  the  once  to  him  mythical  Wave -World. 

Not  only  does  our  poet  cull  similes  from  earth, 
but  the  elemental  phases  of  Earth,  the  various  aspects 
of  Air,  Ocean,  Wind,  and  Tide  have  accomplished 
the  aesthetic  education  of  our  earliest  Poet  of  the 
Forests.  Few  poets  probably  have  ever  had  the 
opportunities  of  studying  the  mystery  of  "  old  ocean's 
gray  and  melancholy  waste  "  like  him.  He  has  crossed 
the  Atlantic  some  ten  or  twelve  times  we  opine — and 
found  poesy  en  voyage  and  gleanings  en  route.  Ocean 
tides  as  well  as  Mountain  Winds  have  educated  him, 
and  Bryant  commands  a  Choir  of  Winds,  like  old 
iEolus ;  and  we  wonder  if  he  has  brought  them  from 


1_>0  MOSAICS— TH  K     N  E  W  . 

fche  Hellespont?  Regular  Greek  winds  they  arc  too, 
like  those  of  JSolus,  "ever  varying."  Run  through  the 
oramut  of  his  wind  songs  and  von  will  not  find  two 
of  the  same  refrain.  He  lias  sung  of  all  winds,  ay. 
flu  Hurricam  Itself  and  played  iEolus  generally  on 
our  western  shore  yet  it  will  be  conceded  ;  there  is 
a  peculiar  crispness  and  vigor  in  singing  the  praises  of 
his  native  breath,  which  we  hope  will  indeed  prove  fco 
him  the  genius  of  health  and  vigor  as  he  returns  to  liis 
Homestead  after  a  weary  campaign  in  the  Busy  Mart, 
this  dawning  June,  1869,  and  to  whom  we  piously 
commit  him — the  Spirit  of  his  native  home.  The 
Mountain   Wind  ! 

Winds  to  ordinary  unphilosophic  observation  arc 
irregular  in  their  comings  and  goings:  and  it'  our 
/Eolian  mosaics  are  grouped  irregularly,  there  will  at 
least  be  variety.  We  once  had  the  scale  all  har- 
moniously arranged;  we  think  our  poet  groups  seveD 
distinct  individual  winds;  but  our  JEolinn  gamut  is 
mi-laid  and  we  now  cull  at  random.  The  winds  arc  let 
Loose  from  their  cave;  and  they  may  blow  as  they  please. 

THE     EARTH     MURMUR  \     THE     VOICE    OF     THE    oKorxn. 
THE     NERVE-THRILL     OF     THE     UNIVERSE. 

Our  poet  is  prone  fco  throw  himself  upon  the  grass 
and    lie    and    dream    dreams.       Sometimes    he    takes    to 

bis    heart    the  breasl    of  fche  greal    Earth-Mother,  and 


M  O  S  A  I  C  S  —  T  HE     N  E  W  .  121 


senses    the    nerve-thrill    of    the    universe.      Sometimes 
Earth  has  a  voice  of  chiding ;  moaning  ;  wailing. 


ANTITHESIS. 

Just  imagine  that  genius  of  Negation,  Mephis- 
toplieles,  the  grand  Marplot,  coming  along  just  as  our 
poet  is  enjoying  one  of  his  Earth-Reveries  ! 

Meplt  istoplieles. 

What  superhuman  ecstasy  !    at  night 

To  lie  in  darkness  on  the  dewy  height, 

Embracing  heaven  and  earth  in  rapture  high, 

The  soul  dilating  to  a  deity. 

With  prescient  yearnings  pierce  the  core  of  earth, 

Feel  in  your  laboring  heart  the  six-days'  birth, 

Exjoy  in  proud  delight  what  no  one  knows. 

And  yet,  we  opine  it  would  take  more  than  a 
Mephistopheles  to  laugh  Bryakt  from  his  Earth- 
Reveries. 

POESY      OF     THE     SEA. THE     WAVE-WORLD. 

I  know  old  ocean  :  every  sight  and  sound  : 

The  storm,  the  calm,  familiar  are  to  me ; 
The  joyous  barks,  off  shore,  when  homeward-bound ; 

The  lonesome  wrecks  that  drift  far  out  at  sea  ! 
I  know  the  meaning  of  the  doubts  and  fears 

That  darken  earth;  I  know  why  cheeks  are  wan  ; 
Why  smiles  are  few  ;  why  there  are  many  tears  : 

I  know  that  mystery,  the  heart  of  man. 

Ax  ox. 

Ay,  the  ancient   sea-loving   Pheacians. 

16 


123  M  08 A  [OS  -T  II  E     X  E  W  . 

So  Ulysses,  the  high-born,  escaped 
From  death  and  from  the  fates,  might  be  the  guest 
Of  the  Pheacians,  men  who  love  the  sea 

( )i)vssi;v.—  Bryant's  translation. 


Nowhere,  in    the   broad,  earth-bread    granary  does 

77/.  Sower  put  in  grain  a\  itli  a  more  broadcast  hand 
and  stronger  arm  or  more  generous  heart  than  he  does 
for  the  Sailor,  the  Man-before-the-Mast,  the  potent 
being  who  evolves  Safety  from  Danger,  the  very 
being  whose  battles  Nordhoef  has  been  fighting. 
Bryant  recognizes  the  Sailor's  claim  to  poetry  ;  you 
cannot  cull  a  passage  in  the  universal  Song  of  the  Sower 
wherein  the  strength,  sublimity,  and  power  of  poetry 
lias  greater  sway.  Here  is  a  broad  humanity  such 
as    Homer    loved. 

Cast,  with  full  hands,  the  harvest  cast, 
For  1 1 1 < *  brave  men  that  climb  the  mast, 
When  to  the  billow  and  the  blast 

It  swings  and  stoops,  with  fearful  strain, 
And  hind  the  fluttering  mainsail  fast, 

Till  the  tossed  hark  shall  sit,  again, 

Safe  as  a  sea-bird  <>n  the  main. 
Cast,  with  full  hands,  the  harvest  cast, 
For  the  brave  mkn  thai  climb  .the  mast! 

What      lias     the  sailor     done    to    earn    his    BREAD? 

Righted    the    vessel  in  danger.     Evolved  safety  from 

destruction.  Here  is  nascenl  drama  to  charm  the 
Greek. 


MOSAICS  — THE     NEW.  123 

HIGH    CARNIVAL    OF    THE    WINDS    AXU    THE    WAVES. 

Ye  dart  upon  the  deep,  and  straight  is  heard 
A  wilder  roar,  and  men  grow  pale,  and  pray  ; 

Ye  fling  its  floods  around  you,  as  a  "bird 

Flings  o'er  his  shivering  plumes  the  fountain's  spray. 

See  !   to  the  breaking  mast  the  sailor  elings  ; 

Ye  seoop  the  ocean  to  its  briny  springs, 

And  take  the  mountain  billow  on  your  wings, 
And  pile  the  wreck  of  navies  round  the  bay. 

We  have  said  the  French  make  a  grand  hash  in 
translating  Bryant's  naturalistic  poems,  but  the 
Germans  make  out  better.  Freiligrath  has  translated 
The  Winds,  and  interior  Germany  can  now  have 
winds  and  waves  in  the  American  style.'"*  This,  Goethe 
says,  is   the   period   of  World   Literature. 

But  would  you  lay  your  hand  on  the  great  aorta 
of  the  sea-tide,  feel  the  pulse  of  the  mighty  channels 
that  keep  fresh  the  habitations  of  man,  which  we 
are  assured  by  Holy  Writ  were  "  founded  upon  the 
seas,"  study  Bryant's  Hymn  to  the  Sea, — an  Ocean 
Anthem  of  the  Wave -World  equal  to  the  Forest 
Anthem  on  the  land. 

THE    GREAT    BREAKWATER    OF    THE    PACIFIC. 

Here,  where  the  ocean-channel  is  deepest,  trace  our 
poet's  power  as  he  follows  the  sobbing  wave  that 
at  the  pole  began  the  treacherous  barricade  built  by 

*  Herr    Freiligrath,    the    German    poet,    has    definitely    settled    at 
Stutt^ardt,   now  the  literary  centre  of  Southern  Germany. 


124  mosaics  -tii  E    x  E  w  . 

the  Coral  Gnomes,  the  scenarium  of  one  of  the  most 
thrilling  traerediea  of  the  New  World,  wherein  l>oth 
officers   and    crew    were    vietiins. 

Primeval  Requiem, — since  time  began 
I<  the  long  wave  that  rolls  upon  Japan  ! 

Thou,  meanwhile,  afar 
In  the  green  chambers  of  the  middle  sea. 
Where  broadest  Bpread  the  waters  and  the  line 
Sinks  deepest,  while  no  eye  beholds  thy  work, 
Creator!  thou  dost  teach  the  coral  worm 
To  lay  his  mighty  reefs. 

From  age  to  age, 
lie  bnilds beneath  the  waters,  till,  at  last, 
His  bulwarks  overtop  the  brine,  and  cheek 
The  long  wave  rolling  from  the  southern  pole 
To  break  upon  Japan. 

OI.AN'c  •!•:    AT    MID-SKA     IN     SUUXIGHT.* 

I  look  forth 

Over  the  boundless  bine,  where  joyously 

The  bright  crests  of  innumerable  waves 

Glance  to  the  sun  at  once,  as  when  the  hands 
Of  a  great  multitude  are  upward  flung 

In  acclamation.      I  behold  the  ships 
Gliding  from  cape  to  cape,  from  isle  to  isle. 
Or  stemming  toward  far  land-,  or  hastening  home 
From  the  old  world.      It  is  thy  friendly  breeze 
That  bears  them,  with  the  riches  of  the  land. 
And  treasure  of  dear  lives,  till,  in  the  port, 
The  shouting  seaman  climbs  and  furls  the  s:iil. 

♦Concerning    this    simile.  Bee  Book  IX..   Pari    I.     Busy  Mart.     The 
Experience  of  the  Journalist  aiding  the  conceit  of  the  Poet. 


MOSAICS  — THE     NEW.  125 


THE  SEA  THE  GREAT  PRESERVATIVE  OF  EARTH. ETERNITY 

OF  THE  SEA. 

The  sea  is  mighty,  but  a  mightier  sways 

His  restless  billows.     Thou,  whose  hands  have  scooped 

His  boundless  gulfs  and  built  his  shore,  thy  breath, 

That  moved  in  the  beginning  o'er  his  face, 

Moves  o'er  it  evermore.     The  obedient  waves 

To  its  strong  motion  roll,  and  rise  and  fall. 

Still  from  that  realm  of  rain  thy  cloud  goes  up, 

As  at  the  first,  to  water  the  great  earth, 

And  keep  her  valleys  green.     A  hundred  realms 

Watch  its  broad  shadow  warping  on  the  wind, 

And  in  the  dropping  shower,  with  gladness  hear 

Thv  promise  of  the  harvest. 


But  perhaps  the  most  subtle  passage  of  Sea-Power 
occurs  a  subjective  strain  in  the  Night  Journey  of  a 
River,  the  waves  of  which  lave  the  Poet's  Long  Island 
Home.  He  bids  the  Darkling  River  glide  away  from 
the  City  by  the  Sea,  which  pollutes  its  marge,  and  seek 
that  mystic  regenerator  in  mid-ocean. 


I  shut  my  eyes,  and  see,  as  in  a  dream, 
The  friendly  clouds  drop  down  spring  violets 
And  summer  columbines,  and  all  the  flowers 
That  tuft  the  woodland  floor  or  overarch 
The  streamlet : — spiky  grass  for  genial  June, 
Brown  harvests  for  the  waiting  husbandman, 
And  for  the  Avoods  a  deluge  of  fresh  leaves. 

I  see  these  myriad  drops  that  slake  the  dust. 
Gathered  in  glorious  streams,  or  rolling  blue 
In  billows  on  the  lake  or  on  the  deep 
And  bearino;  navies. 


L26  MOSAICS       T  II  E     N  K  W. 

Out  at  sea  again.  Here  we  leave  him.  The  climax  of 
the  poem,  The  Wind  of  Night,  the  reader  will  rind 
somewhere  anion--  the  Winds.  But  we  think  the  oriffi- 
aal  reader  of  Bryant's  Forest  Studio  will  concede  The 

Veteran  masters  more*  (dements  than  land. 


Nereus  is  described  as  the  wise  and  unerring  Old 
Man  of  the  Sea,  at  the  bottom  of  which  lie  dwelt. 
His  empire  is  the  Mediterranean,  or  more4  particularly 
the  jEsrean  Sea.  whence  he  is  sometime-  called  The 
Jvjvan.  He  ^\as  believed,  like  other  marine  divinities 
to  have  the  power  of  prophesying  the  future,  and  of 
appearing  to  mortals  in  different  shape-.  In  work-  of 
art,  Nereus,  like  other  sea-gods,  is  sometimes  represented 
with  pointed  sea- weeds  taking  the  place  of  hair  on  the 
eyebrows,  the  chin,  and  the  breast. 

Dr.  Wm.  Smith,  Classical  Dictionary. 

Artists  of  the  marine  genre  have  only  to  sketch  our 
Poe1  with  alga  for  eyebrows  and  sea-weed  for  hair,  and 
we  have  the  Greek  Nereus. 

CONCLUSION.       THE     OLD     AND     THE     NEW. 

While   we    speak    of   Winds   and    Waves,  subjects 

which   we    admit    are   but   remotely   connected    with   the 
Homestead,  let  us  close  with  one  of  the  latest  poems  of 


M  0  S  AH'S-T  11  E     N  E  W  .  127 

the  possessor, —  The   May  Evening.     We  know  that  in 

his  former  poems  he  wrote  The  May  Sun  sheds  an 
Amber  Light;  and  we  have  included  this  exquisite 
description  of  the  on-coming  of  verdure  in  the  month 
of  May,  in  Book  III.,  wherein  it  occurs  in  The  Old 
Mans  Counsel;  the  description  of  Homestead  See- 
nariuni  as  seen  in  the  May  of  Life  of  the  young 
poet's   existence. 

AVe  have  before  spoken  of  the  Greek  tone  of  The 
Old  Marts  Counsel.  Eclogues  are  defined  to  be  pas- 
toral compositions  in  which  shepherds  are  introduced 
conversing  with  each  other  ;  or  little  neat  compositions, 
in  a  simple,  natural  style  and  manner.  But  here  was 
an  ao-ed  Aoriculturist  and  a  young  Poet.  Xo  matter. 
Both  characters  antique.  That  Old  Marts  Counsel 
poem  will  live.     But 

Put  off  from  The  Past  !  a  mirage  :  'tis  fled, 

Its  lights  are  extinguished.     Its  garlands  are  dead. 

Dead  in  one  sense  ;   immortal  in  another. 

Years  afterward,  while  the  Venerable  Minstrel 
the  classic  scholar,  is  sitting  in  his  k>  silent  rooms "  in 
his  elegant  retreat  on  the  picturesque  northern  shore  of 
Long  Island,  while  he  pauses  in  his  long  labor  of  the 
Translation  of  Homer,  The  May  Wind  again  visits  the 
Poet  with  the  sweet  breath  of  the  Past.  He  breathes 
a  sigh  that  the  mission  of  his  Good- Angel  is  ended  ; 
and    gathering    to    his    heart    all    of  consolation,   juve- 


128  mosah  s  -the    x  E  w  . 

aescence,  and  health  the  passing  May  breeze  wafts 
him — he  bids  it  pass  od  fco  refresh  the  toiling  husband- 
man, the  guardian  of  "  the  harvest-bearing  earth,'1 
the  Farmer  ofthe  Amkkkan  :  the  Husbamdman  of  the 
Greek — the  Bame  as  in  days  of  yore  the  world  over. 
Affaio  tlic  Poe1  and  the  Agriculturist.  The  young 
minstrel  who  in  the  May  of  life  fed  his  soul  on  Nature 
is  the  veteran  poet  who  culminates  on   Humanity. 

The  May  breeze  passes  on,  and  the  Poet  resumes 
his  toil  <>vcr  the  hoary  page.  The  Poet  of  the  New 
World  is  translating  the  Poet  of  the  Old. 

MAY    EVENING. 

The  breath  of  Spring-time  at  this  twilight  hour 

(nines  through  the  gathering  glooms, 
And  bears  the  stolen  sweets  of  many  a  flower 

Into  my  silent   rooms. 

Where  hast  thou  wandered,  gentle  gale,  to  find, 

The  perfumes  thou  dost  bring? 
By  brooks,  that  through  the  wakening  meadows  wind, 

Or  brink  of  rushy  spring  V 

Or  woodside,  where,  in  little  companies, 

The  early  wild  flowers  rise, 
Or  sheltered  lawn,  where  "mill  encircling  trees 

May's  warmest  sunshine  lies? 

O'er  the  pale  blossoms  ofthe  sassafras 

And  o'er  the  s|»ieed>nsh  spray, 

Among  the  opening  buds,  thy  breathings  pass 
And  <-ome  embalmed  away. 


MOSAICS- THE     NEW.  129 

Yet  there  is  sadness  in  thy  soft  caress. 

Wind  of  the  blooming  year! 
The  gentle  presence,  that  was  wont  to  bless 

Thy  coming,  is  not  here. 

Go,  then  ;  and  yet  I  bid  thee  not  repair, 

Thy  gathered  sweets  to  shed, 
Where  pine  and  willow,  in  the  evening  air, 

Sigh  o'er  the  buried  dead. 

Pass  on  to  homes  where  cheerful  voices  sound, 

And  cheerful  looks  are  cast, 
And  where  thou  wakest,  in  thine  airy  round, 

No  sorrow  of  the  past. 

Refresh  the  languid  student  pausing  o'er 

The  learned  page  apart, 
And  he  shall  turn  to  con  his  task  once  more 

With  an  encouraged  heart.  v 

Bear  thou  a  promise,  from  the  fragrant  sward, 

To  him  who  tills  the  land, 
Of  springing  harvests  that  shall  yet  reward 

The  labors  of  his  hand. 

And  whisper,  everywhere,  that  Earth  renews, 

Her  beautiful  array, 
Amid  the  darkness  and  the  gathering  dews, 

For  the  return  of  day. 


O  eloquent  breath  of  Manhood !  Thou  art  more 
potent  than  the  May  Breeze  !  Students  of  "  the  starry 
Greek,"  where  is  your  classic  sympathy  \  Ye  sympa- 
thized with  Longfellow  translating  Dante — but 
Bryant    in    "  The  Vale  of  Years "  translating  Homer, 

17 


130 


mosaics   -T  II  E     X  EW 


stands  alone!  That  -Sad  SPEECH."  Sec  College  Epi- 
>o(K — last  part,  Book  IX. 

True The  Mother,  who  had  fitted  The  Youth  for 

the  colleee-hall  within  their  Homestead,  horizon  bound, 
was— "in  her  -rave --low  in  her  -Tave  T 

The  Good  Angel  of  his  Life-pilgrimage,  was — "in 

her  grave  !" 

Still,  there  remained  for  him  Die  l!ni<l<-rscliaft  of 
Students.  Scholarly  sympathy  is  much.  If  ever  there 
was  an  hour  when  the  mental  friends  of  Bryant  should 
be  rallied  round  him— it  is  now  !  at  the  very  finishing- 
up  of  a  Life-Work  :  when  the  weary  student,  feinting 
over  the  classic  page,  strives  to  gather  strength  and 
encouragement  from  the  passing  breeze  of  May. — the 
truant  breeze  ! 


, 


£ 


BOOK    VI. 


ARBOEESCENCE 


^ 


MERICAN  ARBORESCENCE  has, 
through  our  poets  and  artists,  con- 
tributed a  new  feature  to  the  Art 
and  Poetry  of  the  Old  World.  As 
we  have  elsewhere  said,  American 
landscapists,  taking  their  models  from  Nature,  where 
Nature  was  fresh  and  new  from  the  hand  of  her 
Creator,  have  surprised  the  Old  World's  galleries 
into  expressions  sometimes  bordering  on  incredulity, 
that  the  New  World  could  in  reality  furnish  forth 
such  examples  of  gorgeous  scenery. 

If  moss  (cryptogamid)  be  the  pigmy  of  the  vege- 
table world,  then  are  trees  (arborescence)  the  giants; 
flowers  (flora),  the  fairies ;  vines,  the  nameless  graces ; 
and  grasses  (the  German  rasen,  turf  or  sod),  the 
serfs. 

In  arborescence  we  treat  of  the  giants.     The  forests 


L32  A  R  DO  i:  ESC  E  NT  K. 

surrounding  the  Bryant  Homestead,  and  in  the  vicinity, 
gome  of  them,  at  Least,  .-ire  very  grand  huge  steins, 
towering  to  a  vasl  height,  and  among  them  the  trunks 
of  giants  of  a  past  generation  overthrown  by  the 
winds  and  mouldering  on  tin*  ground.  Characteristic 
vestiges  of  "the  forest  primeval  "—the  perpendicular 
and  the  horizontal.  There  is  scarce  a  more  awe- 
inspiring  object  in  nature  than  a  fallen  tree  half 
resolved  to  natal  earth.  The  half  in  its  demi-tomb 
of  clay  hollowed  out  by  the  force  of  its  sudden  down- 
fall—is earth:  the  half  exposed  to  the  air,  con- 
cealed by  a  treacherous  pall  of  moss,  is  rather  animal 
than  vegetable,  being  the  haunt  and  home  of  myriads 
of  the  insect  tribes,  who  make  of  it  their  aliment. 
their  habitation,  and  their  tomb.  Earthy,  vegetable, 
and  animal  nature:  the  triune  forces  are  contending 
over  the  fallen  monarch,  while  insects  on  the  wing 
are  gayly  flitting  round,  and  life  is  dancing  upon 
decay!  Vegetable  life  finally  becomes  a  prey  to  animal 
life  and  mineral  agency.  Then  again,  new  forms  of 
vegetation  arise  from  the  tree-tomb. 

A  progressive  growth  of  childhood  and  youth  in 
the  woods  of  the  Homestead  region,  laid  the  foun- 
dation lor  that  deep  veneration  for  the  forces  of 
Nature  and  for  the  (ion  of  NATURE — the  homage  of 
the  poet-man  to  the  Genius  of  Creation  Production 
and  Re-absorption  the  profound  religious  rapture 
with    which    the    Anthem    of  the    Forests   is   chanted 


A  R  BO-R  ESC  B  tfCE.  \:\:\ 

at    the    great    earth    altar.     A    mighty   epoch    in   soul- 
progression  since 

"  first,  a  child,  and  half  afraid. 
He  wandered  in  the  forest  shade/' 

But  before  we  reconsider  this  Forest  Hymn,  which 
we  have  all  learned  in  our  childhood,  we  have  some- 
thing to  say  of  our  own  tree-giants,  merely  pre- 
mising that  our  Poet  of  the  Forests  is  a  worship- 
per of  the  Great  All-Soul,  the  primal  essence  "  who 
veils  his  glory  in  the  elements,"  as  well  as  God  of 
mind,  who  breathes  upon  us  somewhat  of  his  divine 
breath,  and  awakens  in  us  the  instinct  of  worship. 

Heaven  breathes  the  soul  into  the  minstrel's  breast, 
But  with  that  sonl  he  animates  the  rest ; 
The  God  inspires  the  mortal — but  to  God, 
In  turn,  the  mortal  lifts  thee  from  the  sod. 

Schiller,  The  Fortune-Favored. 


LOCAL     LEGENDS. CITY. 

"  When  an  author  begins  to  be  quoted,"  said  Halleck  once  to 
me,  "he  is  already  famous."  Halleek  found  that  he  was  quoted, 
but  he  was  not  a  man  to  go  on  writing  because  the  world  seemed 
to  expect  it.— Bryant  :  Halleek  Memorial. 

Halleck    in    a   measure   founded    the    legends  of 

o 

Gotham.  The  classic  shades  of  old  Tammany  attest  his 
popularity.  Witness  the  "  Song  "  beginning  with  this 
stanza : 


134  A  R  BOR  ESCENOE. 

HISTORICAL    ORIGIN    OF    «»LI>    TAMMANY. — GOTHAM    LEGENDS. 
Parody  <m  Moore's  ••  Tbara  'a  »  bowor  <>f  roaca  b}r  RanikmcxT'n  ntmm*' 

There  's  a  barrel  of  porter  at  Tammany  Hall, 

And  the  Bucktailfl  are  swinging  it  all  the  night  long; 
In  the  time  of  my  boyhood  'twas  pleasant  to  call 

For  a  seat  and  cigar  'mid  the  jovial  throng. 

HalleckM  Halleck  ! !  we  are  grieved;  chagrined; 
outraged.  How  could  you  take  that  hue  lyric  razor 
of  yours  to  a  beer-barrel !    Is  this  the  way  you  founded 

your  legends — the  legends  that  perpetuate  the  fame  of 
old  Sachem  Tammany  of  the  Delawares,  or  L&nni- 
Lenapes — in  honor  of  whom  your  wigwam  was  named  I 

LOCAL    LEGENDS. — COUNTRY. 

When  the  vox  popvli  asserts  that  a  mind-elabo- 
ration of  whatever  branch  of  art  was  brought  into 
existence  at  such  or  such  a  spot,  designating  the 
birthplace  of  the  ideal — of  two  things,  you  may  as- 
sure yourself — One:  that  artist  or  poet,  that  being's 
fame  is  well  established;  else,  the  mass  would  not 
begin  to  take  pride  in  and  note  his  life  career.  The 
other  item  you  may  assure  yourself  of  is  merely 
a  dual  axiom.  Legends  are  the  offspring  of  truth 
ami  fable.  The  objective  may  he  wrong  while  the 
subjective  i<  right,  or  vice  versa.  The  symbolic 
may  be  true;  the  locale  wrong!  Goethe,  or  some 
otherwise    introspectional   Teuton,   bids  us   pay   great 


A  R  B  O  R  E  S  C  E  N  C  E  .  135 

deference   to   that    hoary  tissue    of  truth  and  fable — 
Legexds. 

"  tourist-ox-the-hudsox.r 

We  were  amused  by  the  effect  on  Bryant,  by 
observing  to  him  that  in  a  little  out-of-the-way  hamlet, 
in  the  vicinity  of  Great  Barrin^ton,  the  "Tourist-ox- 
the-Hudsox  "  said  the  people  affirmed  was  the  veri- 
table spot  where  Bryaxt  wrote  Thaxatopsis. 

Local  Legends  were  begun. 

As  there  happens  to  be  the  ordinary  tissue  of 
truth  and  fable  in  this  legend,  we  conclude  to  state 
the  "  say  "  of  the  vox  populi.  The  subjective  is  right, 
the  objective  wrong.  There  was  a  great  poem  written 
somewhere  in  the  western  part  of  Massachusetts  by 
Bryaxt.  Requesting  our  obliging  Tourist  to  give  in 
his  deposition,  he  speedily  produced  the  following  : — 

LEGEXD     OF     BASH-BISH.        THE     POPULAR     VOICE — u  THEY 

SAY." 

"  Bash-Bish,v  a  beautiful  waterfall  on  the  west- 
ern side  of  the  Berkshire  Hills,  which  I  have  rudely 
attempted  to  describe  in  these  sheets,  is  said  to  have  fre- 
quently been  the  resort  of  the  young  poet.  Whether 
"  the  people  say "  truly  or  not,  I  do  not  know,  but 
I  have  sometimes  also  thought  that  it  was  from  this 
he  caught  the  conception — 


136  A  R  BO  R  ESC  K\  0  E 

M  Take  the  wings 
Of  morning,  traverse  Barca's  desert  sands, 

Or  l<»sc  thyself  in  the  continuous  wood8 
Where  rolls  the  Oregan,  and  hears  no  sound. 
Savi  his  own  dashings." 

Of  course  it  is  a  mountain  stream,  and  could 
hardly  be  compared  to  the  "  Oregan,"  but  I  never 
visit  tlie  wild  spot  without  repeating  to  myself  tin- 
words  which  seem  bom  of  the  spirit  of  the  water. 
These  tails  are  about  twelve  miles  southwest  from 
BarringtOn. 

A     COMPOUND     POEM. 

Studies  of  trees  on  the  southern  fringe  of  the 
(.rent    Northern    Forest-Belt  Plane. 

The  "Great  Northern  Forest-Belt1'  is  estimated 
by  Humboldt,  or  Bonplande,  or  Goethe,  or  Mit- 
chell, or  somebody  else  whom  we  have  idly  studied 
(we  devoutly  hope  we  are  not  doomed  to  pass  an 
examination  on  cosmical  Botany),  to  girdle  the  earth 
at  fifty-one  degrees  of  north  latitude,  fringing  down- 
ward to  forty, — the  trees  gradually  growing  tall 
and  slender;  the  quality  of  wood  softening;  the  foli- 
age increasing  in  redundancy, juiciness,  and  pulpiness, 
until,  as  the  plane  verges  toward  the  u  Equatorial 
Belt"  the  characterism  of  arborescence  assumes  a 
radical  change.  Quick  of  growth;  tropic  luxuriance 
of  leafage;   cotton-wood-like  feathery   foliage,  as  well 


A  R  B  ORESCE  N  0  E  .  1  37 

as  cabbage-like  succulence  of  leafage,  are  the  marked 
characterism  of  the  Equatorial  Belt:  arborescence  en- 
cumbered with  parasites. 

The  Northern  Forest-Belt,  trending  northward  or 
polar-wise, — trees,  instead  of  spindling  up,  dwindle 
down :  expanded  branches,  stunted  growth,  mark  the 
transition  to  the  north  Polar-Belt.  Here  Arbores- 
cexce  gradually  gives  way  to  Shrubbery  :  Shrubbery 
yields  its  place  to  the  humbler  type  of  Cryptogamous 
plants. 

Cryptogamia  crowns  the  Pole. 

The  parallel  fifty-one,  in  girdling  the  earth,  yields,  in 
petrified  trunks,  from  North  America,  North  Europe, 
and  North  Asia,  the  strongest  types  of  forest  wood. 
It  is  not  that  these  are  invariably  the  largest  trees,  for 
the  world  shows  many  isolated  samples  of  more  gigan- 
tic growth  on  the  Equatorial  Plane :  but  the  estimate  is 
ventured  that  the  Northern  Belt  furnishes  the  strongest 
type  of  giant  trees. 

It  is  on  the  southern  fringe  of  this  Great  Northern 
Belt,  that  we  find  our  poet  of  the  forests  has  studied 
and  reproduced  in  his  verse  the  scenarium  of  The 
Forests  :  a  poem  equally  invaluable  to  the  naturalist 
as  to  the  poet-student. 

Bryant  is  the  Christopher  Christian  Sturm  of 
the  New  World.  But  our  reflections  on  the  works  of 
God  in  Nature  and  Providence  come  to  us  in  the 
form  of  finished  poetry. 

18 


L38  A  B  BO  R  ESCENCE. 

DEVOTIONAL     POETRY,     FROM     THE     ANCIENT     IX     THE 
MORNING     OF     OUR     TIMES. 

Our  poetry  of  Nature  has  gone  on,  and  our  hu- 
manity is  on  the  march. 

"  You  don't  know  what  beautiful  thoughts — for  they  arc 
uothing  short  of  these — grow  out  o'  the  ground,  and  Beem  to 
talk  lo  a  man." — Douglas  Jerrolu. 

Sturm,  giving  his  esthetic  and  philosophic  "  causes 
of  man's  indifference  about  the  works  of  Nature," 
thus  airs  his  theory,  before  Bryant's  day,  boxing 
the  ears  of  the  descendants  of  the  old  earth-worship- 
ping Teutons — who,  he  thinks,  are  departing  from  their 
original  faith  through  the  following  causes: — 

O  DO 

I.  Inattention.  II.  Ignorance.  III.  Because  they 
are  wholly  employed  in  their  private  interests.  IV. 
Many  neglect  the  contemplation  of  Nature  through 
indolence.  V.,  and  lastly.  Others  neglect  the  works  of 
God  in  nature,  through  a  principle  of  irrdigion. 

And  the  venerable  Sturm,  after  reading  Yorxo 
TEUTONIC  a  brisk  lecture,  sends  him  into  the  Forest — 
the  forest  of  Germany!  as  Bryant  sent  Young 
America  into  the  New  World  Forest  to  worship 
his  God!  Sturm,  in  the  old  World,  and  Bryant 
in  the  New,  are  leaders  in  the  worship  of  God  in  the 
great  temple  of  Nature. 

Wo  shallgel  all  right  by  and  by;  as  all  Teutotla  is 
at  <»ur  threshold,  it   is  time  we  had  the  Forest  Hymn 


A  RBORESCENCE.  139 

a^ain.  Young  Teutoxia  will  think  this  is  Sturm 
redivivus,  but  we  know  that  the  Forest  Hymn  was 
inspired  by  our  poet's  native  woods  ;  that  the  antithe- 
sis of  the  Old  and  the  New — the  New,  the  Old — 
where  life  is  dancing  upon  decay,  was  one  of  those 
thoughts  that  "grew  out  o1  the  ground,  and  seemed 
to    talk    to    the    man." 

"  They  're  in  the  air,  they  're  in  the  earth, 
In  mental  chaos,  lacking  birth  ; 
A  wait  in  £  endless  ao-es  long 
The  ethereal  wand — The  Power  of  Song." 

And  Bryant  has,  like  Prospero,  liberated  many  a 
pent-up  spirit  of  the  forests. 

The  common  word  Hymn,  from  the  Greek  word 
hymneo,  signifies  to  celebrate.  The  name  is  now  applied 
to  those  sacred  son^s  that  are  sung  in  churches.  The 
Hebrew  hymns  which  bear  the  name  of  King  David 
are  termed  Psalms,  from  the  Greek  word  psallo, 
which  signifies  to  sing.  But  hymns  in  the  Greek 
sense  were  employed  to  celebrate  the  forces  of  Nature, 
as  well  as  other  impersonations  or  illustrations  of 
Supernal  Power.  In  the  Greek  sense,  Bryant  has 
written  two  grave,  strengthening,  thought-inspiring,  and 
soul-elevating  hymns.  He  commences,  as  did  the 
ancient  Greek,  by  grappling  with  the  forces  of  Nature, 
and  he  ends  with  a  paean  to  the  Soul  of  this  wide 
Universe.     What  are  the  hymns  ? 


HO  A  R BO R ESCENC E  . 


ANTITHESIS. 


Bbyant's  Forest  Hymn  and  Hymn  of  the  Sea 
embody  as  key-notes  two  of  the  most  striking  descrip 
tive  passages  of  the  Psalms,  and  two  of  the  strongest 
elements  of  our  earth.  They  are  in  juxtaposition — 
ay,  and  ever  have  been,  from  Creation. 

We  give  the  key-notes:  the  Bard  of  Israel  first  sung 
of  them.  They  are  very  old,  lmt  by  do  means 
exhausted  : — 


"O  Lord,  how  manifold  arc  thy  works!  in  wisdom  hast 
thou  made  them  all:  the  earth  is  full  of  thy  riches.* 

"So  is  this  great  and  wide  sea,  wherein  are  things  creeping 
innumerable,  both  small  and  great  beasts.  There  l:<>  the  ships: 
then-  is  that  Leviathan,  whom  thou  hast  made  to  play  therein." 

Psalm  civ.  24-2(3. 

The  Anthem  of  The  Sea,  we  have  caught  snatches 
of  in  Book  V.  But  this  anthem  of  the  land  is  the  com- 
pound-poem  we  have  alluded  to, 

"Since  first,  a  child,  and  half  afraid, 

He  wandered  in  the  forest  shade  n 

of  the  old  Homestead  Woodlands,  this  latent  poem 
wasevolving  itself  in  his  mind.     A  progressive  growth 


< » 


f   infancy,   youth,   and    manhood — introspectional    life 
imid    the    haunts   of   nature — was    the    ground-plane. 


*()nr  Bard  has  ako  a  special  hymn,  "  Tin  Earth  it  full  of  Thy  Riche*" 
which  few  who  hear  chanted  to  the  pealing  organ  know  Bryant  wrote. 


A  R  B  O PwESCE N CE.  141 

But  what  struck  the  key-note  1  Antitheses.  The  Man. 
Suddenly  ushered  from  the  world  into  the  cathedral 
dome  of  the  primeval  forest,  at  his  later  home  in  Great 
Barrington.  Here  were  mountains  clad  with  giant 
trees,  as  fairy  mounds  are  crowned  with  mosses.  Here 
were  the  primeval  giants  of  Arbobescence.  Here 
life  was  dancing  upon  decay.  And  this  is  a  more 
advanced  poem  than  Thanatopsis! 

Undoubtedly. 

And  this,  instead  of  Tlianatopsis,  is  the  legendary 
poem  of  Bash-Bish  ?  Symbolically  the  vox  popvli  of 
Bash-Bish  is  right.  A  great  poem  was  written  by 
Brtaxt  in  their  vicinity,  and  elicited  by  the  inspi- 
ration of  their  scenarium. 

Give  the  Bash-Bishers  their  legend !  Let  them 
hold  the  score  of  their  Aothem  of  the  Lands. 
Tlianatopsis  is  not  theirs;  but  the  Forest  Hymn  is. 


PRIMEVAL     THEOSOPHY. CALL    TO    WORSHIP    IN    THE    NEW 

WORLD. 

<;  Xot  in  that  dome  whose  crumbling  arch  and  column 
Attest  the  feebleness  of  mortal  hand 
But  to  that  fane  most  catholic  and  solemn, 
Which  God  hath  planned : 

In  that  cathedral — boundless  as  our  wonder, 

Whose  quenchless  lamps  the  sun  and  moon  supply; 

Its  choir,  the  winds  and  waves  ;  its  organ,  thunder  ; 
Its  dome,  the  sky." 


142  A  R  BORE8CE  N  C  E . 

We  quote  from  memory.  We  believe  these  lines 
were  written  by  one  of  the  Brothers  Smith,  authors  of 
Rejected  Addresses.  If  we  err,  a  score  of  pens  editorial 
will  correct  us. 


"To  the  Brahm  of  the  Hindoo,  the  brooding  soul ; 
The  life-sustaining,  absorbing  whole; 
To  the  triune  power* — as  ages  roll — 
The  anthem  of  the  Lands  !" 


The     Root-Theosophy    excavated     by     the    Anti- 
quarian.    This   sounds    very    Bryantic! 


"The  primeval  religion  of  Iran,  if  we  may  rely  on  the  authori- 
ties adduced  by  Mohsani  Fani,  was  that  which  Newtop  calls  the 

oldest  (and  it  may  justly  he  called  the  noblest)  of  all  religions — a 
firm  belief  that  'One  Supreme  God  made  the  world  by  his  power. 
and  continually  governed  it  by  his  providence;  a  pious  fear,  love, 
and  adoration  of  him,  and  due  reverence  for  parents  and  aged 
persons;  :i  fr.it ernal  affection  for  the  whole  human  species,  and  a 
compassionate  tenderness  even  for  the  brute  creation.*  " — SlB 
William  Jones,  in  his  Lecture  iipon  the  Persians. 

Come  to  worship  in  the  old   Dodonean  temple  of 

utlie    Starry   (J reek,"    at    the    Thuringian    altar  of    the 

*  Triune  Power :  Creator,  Snstainer,  an<l  Re-Absorber.  Different 
versions  of  the  Brahraaneae  theosophy.  Students  of  Ritteb's  Hist.  An. 
Ph.)  Imbibe  the  idea  of  a  Triune  Power:  regarding  Brauu  as  the  mental 
phase  of  Deity  evolved  by  the  introspectional  Hindoo: — 

'•  When,  from  tin-  genial  cradle  of  oar  nee, 
forth  the  trihei  of  men.1 

Philosophy  is  mind's  elaboration  :   Divinity— a  godhead's  revelation. 


A  R  B  O  R  E  S  C  E  N  C  E  .  143 

Teuton  "  Earth-  Worshipper/'  at  the  Druid  shrine  of 
the  New  World.  Our  Venerable  Druid  high-priest 
of  Nature  in  his  Eighth  Decade,  calls    to  worship — 


And  low  on  the  turf  we  humbly  bow, 
In  a  fane  not  made  with  hands  ! " 


THE  ANTHEM  OF  THE  LANDS. 

To  the  Indwelling  Life — upholding 

Love — the  Soul  of  this  Wide  Univebse  ! " 


A    FOREST    HYMN. 

The  groves  were  God's  first  temples.     Ere  man  learned 
To  hew  the  shaft,  and  lay  the  architrave, 
And  spread  the  roof  above  them, — ere  he  framed 
The  lofty  vault,  to  gather  and  roll  back 
The  sound  of  anthems ;  in  the  darkling  wood, 
Amid  the  cool  and  silence,  he  knelt  down, 
And  offered  to  the  Mightiest  solemn  thanks 
And  supplication. 

We  all  know  this  poem  by  heart.  Some  of  us  have 
even  had  to  "  parse  "  it  ! 

The  Child  of  the  Forests  the  Priest  of  the  Forests. 
Our  Druid  at  his  Shrine. 

And  now  comes  the  masterly  antithesis,  the  subtle 
connection  and  the  subtle  antagonism  of  the  old  and 
the  young,  destruction  and  rejuvenescence,  death  and 
birth  !  Schiller  says  :  "  It  is  from  the  summit  of  life 
new  life  is  engendered,  and  blooms  in  the  organic  and 


144  A  R  BO  R  ESC  EN  0  E. 

moral   domain."*  And  Bryant,  musing  by  the  Giant 

Oak  as  in  his  more  youthful  days,  oppressed  by  the  un- 
solved  problem,  gravely  exclaims: — 

My  heart  is  awed  within  me  when  I  think 
Of  the  great  miracle  that  still  goes  on, 
In  silence1,  round  me — the  perpetual  work 
Of  thy  creation,  finished,  yet  renewed 

Forever.      Written  on  thy  works  I  read 
The  lesson  of  thy  own  eternity. 
Lo  !  all  grow  old  and  die — but  see  again, 
How  on  the  faltering  footsteps  of  decay 
Youth  presses — ever  guv  and  beautiful  youth 
In  all  its  beautiful  forms.     These  lofty  trees 
Wave  not  less  proudly  that  their  ancestors 
Moulder  beneath  them. 

Ever  the  Old  and  the  X  ew  ;  ever  the  New  and 
the   Old! 

Demi-tones  of  thought. 

The  objective  of  this  Forest  Hymn  is  perfect  truth 
to  nature.  Hows,  our  arborescence  artist,  has  illustrated 
the  objective  of  the  poem  with  taste,  skill,  power,  and 
tenderness;  and  it  needed  each  of  these  several  touches 
to  compass  the  scenarium.  But  the  subjective!  It  sur- 
passes the  objective.  Grave  speculations  have  been 
aired  and  theories  Launched  at  certain  passages.  Hear 
Combe,  the  physiologist  and  phrenologist.  He  airs 
lii<    theory   of   the    elaboration   of   "the    New   and  the 

*  Drinks  the  fresh  vigor  from  the  fiery  Bonrce, 

A-  limbs  imbibe  life's  motion  from  the  brain. 

Schiller, 


ARBORESCENCE.  145 

Old "  in  this  wise,  premising  wonder  to  be  one  of 
the  fundamental  elements  of  mind.  "  I  am  disposed 
to  consider  the  primary  function  of  this  organ  to 
be  the  love  of  the  Xew.  Change  is  the  character  of 
the  world.  Wonder  is  given  us  to  put  us  in  harmony 
with  the  perpetual  succession  of  new  objects  which 
supply  the  place  of  the  old.  Destructiveness  puts  us 
in  harmony  with  decay,  wonder  with  renovation.  Mr. 
Bryant,  I  find,  has  noticed  the  harmonious  and  benevo- 
lent operation  of  these  two  processes;"  and  then  he 
quotes  the  following  introspective  or  subjective  lines: 

WONDER. 

"  My  heart  is  awed  within  me  when  I  think 
Of  the  great  miracle  that  still  goes  on 
In  silence  round  me." 

Turn  to  the  mottoes  for  the  frontispiece. 

Here  is  the  timid  Child  of  the  Forests  half  afraid 
of  the  vague  sublime  !  Can  the  man — the  developed 
Poet  define  this  ennobling-  wonder  \ 

o 

"  The  perpetual  work 
Of  thy  creation,  finished,  yet  renewed 
Forever ! " 

Here  is  Soul-Progression.     But  what  is  his  climax  ? 

"  Written  on  thy  works  I  read 
The  lesson  of  thy  own  eternity  !  " 

10 


1  jf,  A  RBO  R  ESC  E  \  0  E. 

ETERNITY,     i  i i : :    a\;iii:u    of    SEA    and    land. 

Undoubtedly  this  is  a  compound  poem.  The 
Thought-Child  and  the  Thought-Mao  meet.  These 
fundamental  emotions  of  wonder  and  veneration  are 
the  heirlooms  of  the  Old  Homestead.  Tliey  came 
from  that  hermitage  in  the  Old  Pontoosook  Shade. 
But  tliis  rare  culture  !  This  lucid  introspection  \  These 
are  the  accomplishments^  acquirements,  and  soul-elabo- 
ration of  progressive  life.  All  poems  arc  not  written 
immediately.  Goethe  parried  the  latent  analyse  of 
Fauet   in  his  mind   for  a   hall-century. 

The  geographical  position  of  the  region  we  are  now 
visiting,  speaking  <>n  a  broad  scale,  lies  between  forty 
and  fifty  degrees  north  latitude 

A.RBORESCENCE.  Here  the  oak  is  rarely  and  the 
chestnut  and  hickory  are  never  seen,  except  when 
planted,  but  in  their  stead  the  canoe-birch,  the  linden, 
the  black  cherry,  the  ash,  the  poplar,  and,  perhaps  the 
mosl  majestic  of  all,  the  hemlock.  The  brooks  are  the 
iuo-1  remarkable  part  of  the  scenery — clear,  rapid,  noisy, 
leaping  over  fragments  of  rock. 

We  give  in  our  illustration  a  group  of  hemlocks 
hemlock  firs  some  call  them,  others,  hemlock  spruce 
— on  the  Homestead  grounds.  \\  e  have  elsewhere 
ol>MTvcd  that  some  of  these  hemlocks  were  very  lofty 
and  grand;  bul  the  artisi  seldom  selects  for  subjed  of 
illustration    the    largest    trees.      The    largest    or   most 


ARBORESCENCE.  149 

perfect  trees  do  not  always  make  the  most  perfect 
pictures.  The  grouping  of  smaller  ones  with  regard  to 
light  and  shade  often  produces  the  finest  effect.  Ob- 
serve the  withered  hemlocks,  and  think  of  Ked- 
Jacket's  famous  simile, — "  I  stand  a  hemlock  dead 
at  the  top :  death  is  slowly  creeping  toward  the  roots : 
anon,  the  tree  of  the  forest  will  be  a  withered  sapless 
stem." 

Speaking  of  trees, — they  were  the  primal  cradles  of 
earth's  children,  and  we  must  not  omit  one  important 
particular,  which  should  be  bound  up,  with  all  due 
solemnity  and  reverence,  in  the  archives  of  the  First 
Poet's  Homestead-Book  in  America. 

We  now  speak  of  tradition.  Tradition  says  that 
the  first  poetical  lines  ever  gotten  off  on  American 
shores,  were  those  of  our  sole  and  only  worn-out  nurs- 
ery-rhyme : — 

CRADLE-TAX     ON     POETS. 

THE    PRIMAL    SWINGING     TREE-CRADLE    AN    INVENTION    DUE    TO    THE 

INDIAN. 

"  Rock-a-by  baby  upon  the  tree-top  ! 
When  the  wind  blows  the  cradle  will  rock. 
When  the  bough  breaks  the  cradle  will  fall, 
And  down  will  come  Rock-a-by  baby  and  all." 

The  circumstance,  as  related  by  tradition,  is  this. 
A  row-boat  had  put  off  with  an  exploring  crew. 
Among  this  crew  was  a  poetaster.  They  landed  at 
a  luscious  Strawberry-patch.     While  they  were  regaling 


fr.ii  A  RBO  R  ESC  E  N  ( IE. 

themselves  on  the  fragrant,  wild,  unrivalled  strawberries 

of  the  New  World,  they  spied  among  tin-  boughs  of  the 
young  saplings,  swaying  in  the  breeze,  and  enjoying  a 
regular  rocking  frolic,  sundry  Indian  papooses,  done  up 

in   skins,  suspended  to  the  lithe   boughs. 

Here  they  were,  the  infant  natives  of  the  soil, 
rocking  and  dancing  while  yet  in  their  Bwaddling 
bands.     The  conceit  struck  the  humor  of  the  poetaster, 

and  the  poetaster  struck  off  the  lines.  This,  according 
to  tradition,  occurred  in  the  earliest  settlement  of 
our  country,  and  still  "Rock-a-by  baby"  is  regarded 
and  quoted  as  our  only  American  "Nursery  Son--." 
Poets  of  America,  please  look  to  this.  We  believe 
Bryant  has  done  his  duty  to  posterity  by  writing  one 
k*  Nursery  Song."  Let  each  poet  furnish  one.  We 
here   initiate  a   cradle-tax   on   poets. 

TREES     o\     THE     CEDABMERE     BRYANT     SKAT. — THAT     PET 
BLACK-WALNUT. 

We  conclude  what  we  have  to  say  of  poets'  trees 
by  a  word  <>r  two  respecting  those  on  the  grounds  of 
Bryant  at  Roslyn.  Here  are  a  V2U&i  iiuiiiIht  of  trees 
planted  under  the  poet's  supervision,  and  many  by 
\\\<  own  hands.  Among  them  is  the  apple-tree,  the 
arrival  of  which  in  his  grounds  he  has  celebrated  in  the 
poem  entitled  -"'Hie  Planting  of  the  Apple-Tree,'1 
a  poem   which   pleased    Fitz-Greene   Elalleck  so  much. 


ARBORESCEXCE.  1  f)  ] 

that  lie  transcribed  it  and  committed  it  to  memory. 
At  almost  every  step  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  dwell- 
ing, yon  meet  some  tree  or  shrub  with  which  the 
grounds  are  decorated.  But  the  trees  which  he  is  most 
proud  of  is  a  black-walnut,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
distant  from  the  mansion,  which  first  made  its  appear- 
ance above  ground  in  1713  and  has  attained  a  girth  of 
twenty-live  feet  and  an  immense  breadth  of  branches. 
Every  year  it  strews  the  ground  around  its  gigantic 
stem  with  an  abundance  of  nuts,  the  finest  of  their  kind. 
A  few  years  since,  Dr.  R.  U.  Piper,  an  enthusiast  in 
arboriculture,  came  to  Long  Island  to  make  a  drawing 
of  it,  which  he  himself  etched  and  published  in  a 
serial  work  on  American  Trees. 

A  poem  wherein  this  Black- Walnut,  the  Poet's 
special  pride,  is  mentioned.  Herein  will  be  found  also 
the  wolf  or  iron  simile.  The  minstrel  acknowledges  the 
genial  atmosphere  of  his  birth-month — 1861.  May  each 
returning  season  contribute  to  the  cheerful  repose  of 
a  mind  well  furnished  and  a  human  heart. 

On  my  cornice  linger  the  ripe  black  grapes  ungathered  ; 

Children  fill  the  groves  with  the  echoes  of  their  glee, 
Gathering  tawny  chestnuts,  and  shouting  when  beside  them 

Drops  the  heavy  fruit  of  the  tall  black-walnut  tree. 

Glorious  are  the  woods  in  their  latest  gold  and  crimson, 
Yet  our  full-leaved  willows  are  in  their  freshest  green. 

Such  a  kindly  autumn,  so  mercifully  dealing 

With  the  growths  of  summer,  I  never  yet  have  seen. 


152 


A  RBO  U ESC EN  C  E 


like  this  kindly  season  may  life's  decline  come  o'er  me; 

Past  is  maiili L's  summer,  the  frosty  months  arc  here; 

Yel  be  genial  airs  and  a  pleasant  sunshine  left  me, 

Leaf,  and  fruit,  and  blossom,  to  mark  the  closing  year. 

Dreary  is  the  time  when  the  flowers  of  earth  are  withered  ; 

Dreary  is  the  time  when  the  woodland  Leaves  are  cast, 
When,  upon  the  hillside,  all  hardened  into  iron, 

Howling,  like  a  wolf,  Hies  the  famished  northern  blast 

Dreary  are  the  years  when  the  eye  can  look  no  longer 
With  delight  on  nature,  or  hope  on  human  kind; 

Oh  may  those  that  whiten  my  temples,  as  they  pass  me, 
Leave  the  heart  unfrozen,  and  spare  the  cheerful  mind  ! 


BOOK     VII. 
REUNION 


HOME    AGAIN  !    REUNION. 

Mutation  symbolized  bv  a  Butterfly,  the  changeful  "  Blos- 
som of  the  Air.'1 — "  When  the  Children  of  the  House 
come  Home."— In  from  "the  Prairies." 

U.TATION  is  stamped  upon  all 
things  earthly.  The  shrine  of  the 
ideal  is  alone  to  he  kept  up  by 
props  of  the  real.  If  this  is  true  in 
the  Old  World  of  the  Shakspeare  house  it  is  equally 
true  in  the  New  World  of  the  Bryant  house.  Its 
original  somewhat  rambling  and  baronial  (we  think 
baronial  is  now  used  in  the  sense  of  falling  down) 
proportions  have  been  somewhat  curtailed ;  the  old 
mansion  has  had  a  lift  in  the  world  and  now  holds  up 
its  head  more  loftily,  by  a  story,  than  it  did,  it  having 
been   raised  and   a   story   of  modern   construction   put 

20 


i;>4  B  i:r  nion. 

under  it,  flanked  by  comfortable  and  graceful  piazzas 
and  crowned  with  dormer  windows  and  curved  roofs. 
Thus  fche  <>ld  homestead  is  now  remodelled,  and  en- 
larged and  ornamented,  yet  preserving  as  much  of  the 
original  aspect  of  the  dwelling  as  was  consistent  with  a 
certain  degree  of  elegance.  In  this  renovation  Bryant 
(the  poet)  lias  quietly  avoided  the  dangerous  rock  on 
which  Shenstone  wrecked  his  paternal  inheritance — 
that  of  losing  sight  of  individual  comfort  and  content- 
ment in  his  ambition  to  make  the  place  striking  and 
showy. 

The  Poet,  mounted,  ranging  The  Prairies,  1882, 
descries  "The  Bee,"  the  Harbinger  of  Civilization  who 
came  with  man  (i.  e.  The  Saxon  Clan)  "across 
the  eastern  deep."  This  insignificant  Bee,  from  the 
forests  of  Thuringia,  frightens  the  timid  native-Ameri- 
can Deer.  Why?  Dramatic  Dualism.  At  the  on- 
coming of  The  Bee  commences  the  exodus  of  fche 
beasts  of  the  American  Forest  (Prairies).  At  the 
clarion  crow  of  Chanticleeb  from  the  Orient,  the 
personification  of  civilization  itself,  all  the  l>easts  of 
the  American  Forest  are  put  to  flight  The  Bee  is 
the  prophet  who  predicts.  Tin-:  Cock  is  destiny  itself; 
who  executea  Where  the  Cock  crows,  the  Eagle  no 
longer  screams;  when  the  Eagle  yields  to  the  Cock. 
Natun  yields  to  Civilization.  Had  pioneer  John 
Howard  Bryanl  never  "squatted'1  in  Illinois,  we  should 
have  no  poem  of  The  Prairies  from   William  Cullen, 


REUNION.  155 

Pioneer  Bryant  found  a  new  phase  of  Nature  !  As  soon 
as  lie  had  reared  his  cabin  he  wrote  to  Brother 
William   to   come  on  and   interpret  a  page  of  nature, 

"  For  which  the  speech  of  England  has  no  name." 

For  what  William  Cullen  found  in  the  Prairies,  read 
the  poem.  You  have  read  it  a  hundred  times ;  read 
it  once  more.  Xote  the  symbolic  climax.  It  means 
something,  as  do  all  Bryant's  climaxes. 

The  graceful  deer 
Bounds  to  the  wood  at  my  approach.     The  bee, 
A  more  adventurous  colonist  than  man, 
With  whom  he  came  across  the  eastern  dee]). 
Fills  the  savannas  with  his  murmurings, 
And  hides  his  sweets,  as  in  the  golden  age, 
Within  the  hollow  oak.     I  listen  long- 
To  his  domestic  hum,  and  think  I  hear 
The  sound  of  that  advancing  multitude 
Which  soon  shall  till  these  deserts.     From  the  ground 
Conies  up  the  laugh  of  children,  the  soft  voice 
Of  maidens,  and  the  sweet  and  solemn  hymn 
Of  sabbath  worshippers.     The  low  of  herds 
Blends  with  the  rustling  of  the  heavy  grain 
Over  the  dark-brown  furrows.     All  at  once 
A  fresher  wind  sweeps  by,  and  breaks  my  dream. 
And  I  am  in  the  wilderness  alone. 

Here  is  Max  standing  between  the  two  great  an- 
tagonistic forces — nature  and  civilization.  The  Bee, 
the  harbinger  of  civilization,  from  the  Forests  of  Thu- 
ringia — brought  over  the  "  big  blue  wave "  1  >y  the 
frugal   and  industrious   settlers  of  New  Amsterdam   to 


L56  R  ED  x  ion  . 

stock  their  hereditary  bee-hives  with  luscious  honey 
for  winter  "slap-jacks"  is  the  winged  Mercury  of  the 
Prairies  which  announces  the  on-coming  of  the  Saxon- 
clan!  A  veritable  Mercury  is  he:  he  steals  wherever 
he  roams.  The  Bee,  the  harbinger  of  civilization  is 
Ivors  de  combat  with  the  timid  deer:  we  see  in  the 
Fountain  that  when  the  Cock  comes  on  (Civilization 
itself),  one  crow  of  the  lordly  chanticleer  from  the 
Orient  announces  the  exodus  of  all  the  beasts  of  the 
American  Forests ! 

In  Irvtng's  Poem  on  the  Prairies,  he  thus  speaks  of 
the  path  of  the  Bee : — "  They  have  been  the  heralds  of 
civilization,  steadfastly  preceding  it  as  it  advances  from 
the  Atlantic  borders,  and  some  of  the  ancient  settlers 
of  the  West  pretend  to  give  the  very  year  when  the 
honey-bee  first  crossed  the  Mississippi." 

WHO    IS    PIONEER    JOHN    HOWARD    BRYANT. 

Iii  a  volume  entitled  "Poets  and  Poetry  of  the 
West,"  published  in  1864,  some  account  is  given  of  John 
Howard  Bryant,  the  brother  of  the  elder  poet,  He  was 
born  in  Oummington  on  the  22d  of  July.  L807.  He 
early  manifested  a  fcaste  for  study  and  became  a  pro- 
ficient in  mathematics  and  the  natural  sciences.  These 
lie  studied  for  awhile  at  the  Rensselaer  School  in  Troy. 
In  L826  his  first  published  poem,  which  was  thought  to 
give  much  promise  of  poetic  talent,  appeared   in   the 


REUNION.  157 

United  States  Review,  of  which  his  brother  was  one  of 
the  editors.  It  was  entitled  "  My  Native  Village."  He 
migrated  from  Massachusetts  to  Illinois  in  1831,  became 
a  squatter  on  the  wild  lands,  purchased  a  large  farm 
when  the  lands  came  into  market,  married  and  has  lived 
in  Illinois  ever  since.  He  has  been  a  representative  in 
the  State  legislature,  and  a  candidate  of  the  free-soil 
party  for  a  seat  in  Congress,  when  that  party  was  yet 
weak.  In  1855,  he  collected  his  poems  in  a  volume  of 
ninety-three  pages,  which  was  published  by  the  Apple- 
tons  in  New  York.  Dr.  K.  W.  Griswold,  in  a  brief 
critical  estimate  of  his  poetry,  says  that  it  possesses  the 
same  general  characteristics  as  the  poetry  of  his  brother, 
that  it  shows  him  to  be  a  lover  of  nature  describing 
minutely  and  effectively,  the  versification  easy  and  cor- 
rect, and  the  whole  gives  proof  that  it  is  written  by  a 
man  of  taste  and  kindly  feelings,  and  a  mind  stored 
with  the  best  learning.  Pioneer  Brvant  is  author  of 
the  admirable  poem  Senatchwine  s  Grave,  which  we 
regret  we  cannot  include  in  the  Homestead  Book. 

The  original  cabin  of  Pioneer  Bryant  has  given 
place  to  a  lordly  mansion,  surrounded  with  cultivated 
grounds  and  apple-trees.  Several  of  the  Bryant  broth- 
ers who  started  "  Westward  ho  !"  are  here  congregated 
in  unity ;  owning  large  herds  of  cattle  and  horses,  which 
pasture  on  the  rich  meadows.  They  also  cultivate  the 
sugar  millet  (sorghum)  and  make  great  quantities  of 
syrup.     The  fields  abound  with  grouse,  there  are  still 


L58  B  E  [JNION. 

tlocks  of  wild-turkeys,  while  the  orchards  produce  the 
largest  and  finest-flavored  apples  and  the  meadows 
abound  in   Luscious  wild  strawberries, 

COMING    HOME. 

\\'iii:i:i:i\  THE  "  BAGGAGE  of  THOUGHT," — WAIFS  OF  THE  WoiM.n's 

Gleanings;  the  Antiquarian,  the  Historical,  the  Philo- 
bophk  al,  the  Natural,  the  Poetic,  the  /Esthetic,  the 
Mathematical,  and  the  Practical, — gathered  by  the 
Bryants,  is  brought  home  to  restock  the  Old  Cock- 
loft.* 

What  good  is  a  homestead  if  it  be  not  a  shrine  in 
which  to  garner  the  choice  waifs  of  reminiscence  and 
the  souvenirs  of  thought?   (The  cobwebs  of  the  brain.) 

One  day,  in  the  sanctum  of  dusty  Gotham  the 
shrine  of  the  real,  we  asked  the  owner  of  the  homestead 
if  that  target — the  poor  "  prairie-hawk n  with  out- 
stretched wings  that  he  had  "poised  on  high"  thirty 
year-  ago  was  there  yet,  when  he  visited  the  Prairies 
in  1864 ?f  Whereupon,  lie  gravely  informed  us  lie 
feared  it  had  -  kissed  the  earth"  after  the  manner  of 
Homer's  heroes— the   victim  of  some  young  Schutzer. 

HoldI  Don'1  cram  that  Oocklofl  bo  full  of  Thought-Baggage  thai  we, 
Bryant's  Thonsand-and-one   Readers,  cannot   find  a  place  for  cur  ideas] 

That    Cockloft   is  promised  to  us;    we  who  had   to   learn  his  poems    before 

we  loved  I  hem. 

t  "The  prairie-hawk  that,  poised  on  high, 
Flaps  his  broad  wrings,  yet  moves  not." 

■•1  have  seen  the  prairie-hawk  balance  himself  in  the  air  for  hoars 
together,  apparently  over  the  same  Bpo1  ;  probablj  watching  his  prey." 


REUNION.  159 

Among  his  later  journeys  was  one  performed  in  the 
early  summer  of  1864,  to  Illinois,  the  region  which  he 
had  described  in  his  poem  of  The  Prairies,  as  he  first 
saw  it  in  1832.  What  was  then  a  beautiful  unopened 
wilderness,  he  now,  as  he  tells  in  one  of  his  Letters 
of  a  Traveller,  saw  full  of  towns  and  villages  and 
cultivated  farms.  The  tall,  showy  flowering  plants  of 
the  much-visited  region  had  been  supplanted  by  the 
blue  grass,  and  even  in  the  edges  of  the  groves  the 
rankly  growing  aboriginal  herbage  had  given  place  to 
the  white  clover.  Groves  and  orchards  had  sprung  up 
in  the  broad  open  tracts,  the  fields  were  fenced,  the 
roads  bordered  with  trees.  The  Paleface  foot  was  on 
the  Indian  soil.  The  prairie-wolf,  which  was  once 
often  met  with,  had  disappeared,  and  the  deer  was 
no  longer  seen  browzing  on  the  edges  of  the  wood- 
lands. The  poem  of  The  Prairies  is  rather  an  his- 
torical reminiscence  than  a  description  of  any  thing  now 
existing  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  except,  perhaps,  in  a 
few  little-visited  neighborhoods.  And  who  have  thus 
s]3oiled  our  beautiful  ideal  of  The  Prairies  ?  Mostly 
Swedes  and  Germans ;  though  we  opine  Pioneer 
Bryant  has  assisted.  Ah,  the  Poet  has  proved  the 
Prophet !  "  The  Bee,"  the  harbinger  of  civilization,  thirty 
years  ago  foretold  the  on-coming  of  the  Saxon  clan 
and  the  Teuton  line.  The  busy  bees  from  the  forest  of 
Thuringia  have  swarmed  upon  us,  and  the  cry  is  "  still 
they  come  I" 


L60  R  E  0  x  i  <>  x 


oub  i  \>l   glance    \l   thai    immortal  "  prajrie-hawk ! 

Breezes  ov  the  South  ! 
Who  t<»s  tbe  golden  and  the  dame-like  flowers, 
And  pass  the  prairie-hawk  thai,  poised  on  high, 
Flaj»s  his  broad  wings,  yet  moves  not — ye  have  played 

Anion--  the  palms  of  Mexico  and  vines 
Of  Texas,  and  have  crisped  the  Limpid  brook- 
That  from  the  fountains  ofSonora  glide 
Into  the  calm  Pacific — have  ye  fanned 
A  nobler  or  a  lovelier  scene  than  this? 

Bryant  on    Tin    Ptairii »,   1832. 


IN     MEMORIAM. OLD     ORCHARD. 

The  Head  of  that  prairie-hawk  (which  was  all  that 
was  left  of  him)  will  be  found  in  effigy  on  the  right- 
Hand  upper  corner  of  our  initial  cover. 

It  is  pleasant  to  find  in  this  world  of  change  some- 
thing upon  which  the  eye  may  rest,  giving  back  an  old 
and  familiar  look  at  once  venerable  and  hoary,  at  once 
familiar  and  genial.  Must  every  thing  earthly  change  \ 
The  poet   has  said  : — 

Weep  not  that  the  world  changes — did  it  keep 

A  Btable,  changeless  state,  'twere  cause  indeed  to  weep. 

Mutation. 

Yet  amid  this  world  of  mutation  it  is  pleasant  to  be 
able  to  speak  of  sonic  landmarks  of  the  venerable, 
around  which  association  clings  with  grateful  remem- 
brance. 


'mm 


~v--.. 


' 


REUNION.  163 

Such  is  the  Old  Homestead  Orchard.  The  ven- 
erable kk  apple-trees  " — once  the  poet's  chief  pride — 
which  our  artists,  the  painter  and  the  engraver,  skilfnl 
in  such  delineations  and  delighting  in  the  reproduction 
of  vegetable  forms,  have  depicted  in  such  masterly 
style,  are  picturesque,  if  nothing  else. 

Old  they  are,  and  they  are  continually  growing 
older ;  but  with  all  their  picturesqueness,  the  utilitarian 
would  say  they  are  cumberers  of  the  ground.  Sturm, 
however,  the  great  naturalistic  moralist  of  Germany  of 
the  past,  would  plead  for  the  old  apple-trees.  He 
says,  in  his  day  apple-trees  were  standing  which  were 
known  to  be  over  a  thousand  years  old.  And  why — 
with  proper  care  and  the  guardianship  of  the  Old 
World  Insect  Destroijer — should  not  our  Poets  Tree 
stand  when  posterity  comes  of  age — nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  years  hence  \ 

The  Veteran's  Recollections  of  Youth  in  the  Old  Orchakd. 
uThe  Boy  among  the  Apple-Trees." 

REFRAIN. 

Oh  !  those  were  joyous  olden  times, 

The  times  of  which  we've  read, 
Of  good  old-fashioned  apple-pie, 

Of  rye  and  Indian  bread  ! 

Moanings  of  cut  Old-School  Barch 

This  old  orchard,  which  now  has  so  weird  and  almost 
ghastly  an  aspect,  and  which,  unless  some  guardian 
Sturm  takes  charge  of  it,  will  shortly  disappear,  was  in 


h;  1  I:  K  UNION. 

the    poet's  childhood    and    l>oyhood    a    beautiful    spot. 
Some  of  the  trees  were  just  beginning  to  bear;  others 
were   in    their    prime,   and   every   Bpring  covered   with 
blossoms    and    murmurous    with    thousands    of    bees, 
and    every    autumn    loaded    with    fruit.       Underneath 
them,    bhe    sod,   still   unexhausted,   was  carpeted    with 
the   freshest  grass  spotted  with  white  clover.     In  the 
shade  of  Buch  as  stood  near  the  dwelling,  the  inmates 
of  the  family  read  the  graver  books  of  the  library  on 
summer  Sundays,  and  the  younger  ones  on  week  days 
enjoyed    their  athletic  sports.     A    Teutonic    phase   of 
American  life,  this.     Americans  are  rarely  given  to  out- 
of-door  enjoyment  and  recreation.     The  poet  is  wont  to 
relate,  that  in  his  boyhood,  when  the  spotted  fever  pre- 
vailed with  a  frightful  mortality  in  the  Atlantic  States, 
be  often  heard   in  his  orchard  the  bells  tolling  for  the 
frequent    funerals,  and    the   whole    atmosphere,   as  the 
sounds  floated  through  it  and  died  away,  seemed  tilled 
with  a  note  of  wailing  for  the  shortness  of  man's  exist- 
ence on  earth.      In  autumn,  when  the  fruit  was  gathered, 
the  labor  was  almosl  a  pastime.     The  finer  fruit,  after 
being  shaken  from  the  boughs  to  the  ground,  was  put 
by  itself  to  be   placed  in  bins  for  the  winter:  and  the 
rest,    the    inferior    multitude,    the    rabblement    of   the 
orchard,  was  carried  to  the  cider-mill  to  be  ground  and 
pressed  for  cider,     The  making  of  cider,  which  was  then 
carried  on  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  now.  was  a 
sorl  of  fro  lie.     One  inconvenience  which  attended  it  was 


RE  UN  10  X  .  165 

that  the  boys  engaged  in  gathering  the  apples  and  tend- 
ing the  cider-mill  were  apt  to  get  a  sort  of  surfeit  from 
eating  the  fruit  and  drinking  the  must  as  it  streamed 
from  the  press.     But  then  there  was  always  a  physician 

at  hand — a  family  physician  ! 

"  Oil !  those  were  truly  happy  times, 
Of  gladsome,  rustic  life," 

moans  the  Old-School  Baed.  Hope  lures  the  boy, 
while  reminiscence  soothes  the  veteran. 

Shadow-Boy  has  had  a  surfeit  of  apples  and  ckler 
just  from  the  press,  and  just  now  he  is  laid  up.  The 
Old-School  Baed  takes  his  place. 

Family    Reunion. — "The    Bryants    at    Play"    in    the    Old 
Homestead — 1860. 

During   the    summer    of   1866,    the    Bryants    from 


£3 


T 


Illinois  (in  from  the  conquest  of  The  Prairies)  spent 
the  warm  season  at  their  youthful  home.  The  party 
consisted  of  eight  persons,  among  them  were  Pioneer 
John  Howard  Bryant  and  a  younger  sister  (his  youth- 
ful playmate,  to  whom  reference  is  made  in  the  poem 
of  "  The  Ancient  Oak ")  with  whom  we  feel  most 
familiarly  acquainted.  Poet-farmers  who  first  appreci- 
ate the  Beauty  of  the  prairies,  and  then  cut  them 
up  for  their  Utility  !  Children  who  will  swing  in  the 
boughs  of  fallen  trees  and  glean  the  talismans  of  happi- 
ness from  the  wrecks  of  the  real — these  are  types  of 
humanity  which  the  world  recognizes. 


REUNIO N 


I  i:i:i:i. M  Ul  U.     I   HOKI   B. 

Ik  Homestead-Hall  in  the  Highland  prepare, 
The  Bride  of  a  Life-Time — t<>  welcome  there] 
The  Mountain-Wind,  with  his  wand  of  health, 

Shall  dower  her  with  life's  regal  wealth, 

And  the  sprite-  bring  tribute  from  sylvan  glades 

To  "the  Fairest  of  the  Ri  bal  Maids," 

For  the  Pilgrims  now  no  longer  roam 

And  the  FOBBST   eliants  his  welcome   home  : 

"The  Homestead-Hall  in  the  Highland  prepare, 
The  Bride  of  a  Lifb-Timb — to  welcome  there  !" 

The  occupations  and  diversions  of  the  family  group 
were  seemingly  an  unanimous  conspiracy  to  revive 
pleasing  reminiscences,  and  apparently  they  succeeded 
in  invoking 

"The  Return  of  Youth." —  Brtant. 

"  The  Source  of  Youth." — ScHILLEB. 

"  Believe  me,  the  fountain  of  youth  is  not  an  idle 
fable;  it  is  the  perennial  spring  that  runs  in  poesy's  art.'1 

There  shall  he  welcome  thee,  when  thou  shalt  stand 

On  his  bright  morning  hills,  with  smiles  more  sweet 
Than  when  at    first    he  took  thee  by  the  hand, 

Through  the  lair  earth  to  lead  thy  tender  feet. 
He  -hall  bring  back,  hut  brighter,  broader  still. 

Life*-  early  -lory  to  thine  eye-  again, 

Shall  clothe  thy  Bpiril    with  new  Strength,  ami  lill 

Thy  leaping  heart  with  warmer  love  than  then. 

Hi  turn   <>j'    )'<>"//i. 

They  ate  apples  from  "The  ()1<1  Orchard,"  and 
bragged  of  raising  "larger  ones"in  Illinois.     All  the 


REUNION.  107 

storied  localities  are  hunted  up.  The  Johnno  Brook  is 
explored ;  the  treacherous  bridge  found  to  need  renew- 
ing ;  the  old  Maple-Trees  are  recognized ;  and,  above 
all,  is  "  the  Spring  "  visited,  and  each  vies  in  telling  the 
best  story  on  the  ;'  cuttings-up  of  the  students,"  now 
grave  practitioners  of  physic,  who  would  not  jeopardize 
their  dignity  by  a  hearty  laugh.  Not  they.  The  old 
office,  at  its  present  resting-place  where  the  oxen  left  it 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  is  visited  at  a  respectful  distance. 
Tlie  Rivulet  is  explored  in  all  its  meanderings — but  no 
one  is  in  the  least  "  afraid,"  and  thus  a  nameless  charm 
is  wanting*.  No  one  gives  utterance  to  this  feeling  yet 
it  is  felt  by  all.  So  they  turn  them  within  doors,  and 
here  "  the  cockloft "  is  the  favorite.  It  always  is. 
Then,  at  the  evening  reunion  around  the  fireside,  or  at 
the  tea-table,  or  some  domestic  shrine,  there  occurs  the 
ever-recurring  "  genial  family  wrangle "  as  to  which 
room  "  The  Poet  "  was  born  in  t  One  says  in  one  room, 
and  another  (younger  than  he),  pretends  to  know  all 
about  it — says  another  room.  Finally,  they  get  in  such 
a  tangle,  that  they  wisely  go  to  bed  to  sleep  over  it, 
and  foolishly  forget  all  about  this  most  important  sub- 
ject in  their  rivalry  to  see  which  shall  see  the  old  sun 
rise  earliest  in  the  morning. 

DISCOVERY     OE     A     VERITABLE     ANTIQUE. 

United  in  their  labor  of  love,  every  one  hindered 
everybody  else  in  their  multiform  endeavors  to  resusci- 


i:  1:  i  \  i  »>  \  . 

tate  and  rehabilitate  the  ( >ld  Homestead.  uThe  Girls," 
now  <  1  i  *_l' 1 1  i  J  i  t  * <  1  matrons  with  their  mischievous  children, 
senl  the  children  t<»  "the  Old  Orchard"  after  apples 
"for  <>iic  more  batch  of  old-fashioned  apple-pic-!" 
'•The  Boys" — venerable  men — the  first  thing  cleared 
the  brambles  from  "The  old  Grave- Yard"  and  re- 
sodded  ill'-  Graves  of  the  Household;  neglected  l>\ 
strangers. 

In  the  rear  of  the  Homestead,  while  levelling  and 
smoothing  the  ground  about  the  premises,  Pioneer 
John  Howard  Bryant  (whether  with  a  plough  we 
cannot  say)  turned  up  a  "treasure-trove"  a  talisman 
ot'jov  in  the  old  ball.  This  was  nol  a  bag  of  gold  or  a 
kettle  of  "  Continental  paper-money"  but"The  Roots 
of  the  Ancient  Oak,"  the  subjeci  of  one  of  his  most 
charming  Homestead  poems.  The  "Historian  of  his 
Infancy  "    -WORDSWORTH. 

Here  is  the  same  holy  childhood's  companionship — 
the  brother  and  the  sister:  each  true  to  their  latent  un- 
developed nature.  But  the  scope  of  the  allusions  to 
"the  Ancient  Oak"  has  a  wider  extent.  Was  this  true 
to  tlie  boy-nature  of  the  individual  I 

It  must  be  bo.  For  John  Howard  Bryan!  to  have 
written  tin-  poem  thirty  years  after  the  events  taking 
place  the  boy  swinging  in  the  branches  of  the  pros- 
trate red  <>ak  must  have  had  undefinable  thoughts  of 
something  vaguely  foreshadowing  the  destinies  of  the 
world,  which,  al   the  time,  probably  he  could  ill  define. 


REUNION.  169 

Yet,  in  after  years,  he  brings  this  out  to  our  entire 
satisfaction.  We  picture  the  lonely  post-boy  plodding 
his  weary  way  over  the  "two  miles  and  a  half"— bring- 
ing news  of  what  \  The  epoch  which  according  to  some 
modern  critics  decided  the  world's  destiny.  We  are  not 
so  sanguine.  Perhaps  half  our  pleasure  consists  in  the 
juxtaposition  of  circumstances.  In  this  remote  high- 
land region  of  Massachusetts  the  news  comes  from  the 
great  battle-ground  of  nations.  Yet  that  news  to  chil- 
dren playing  among  the  boughs  of  the  fallen  oak,  is, 
though  remembered,  a  mere  ordinary  circumstance  of 
the  day.  The  downfall  of  an  emperor  in  Europe  is  a 
trivial  incident  compared  with  the  downfall  of  the  king 
of  the  forests  at  their  threshold!  The  more  we  strive 
to  analyze,  the  more  difficult  it  becomes  to  strike  the 
key-note  of  our  enjoyment.  It  is  akin  to  the  immortal 
"  boy  feeling  "  that  sanctifies  the  names  on  the  weather 
board  of  the  old  school-house.  It  is  intuitive,  and 
brooks  no  analyzing. 

THE     EULOGY. 

And  now  all  the  Bryant  souls  in  the  Old  Home- 
stead are  called  out,  and  stand  in  reverential  awe 
surrounding  "  the  Roots  of  the  Ancient  Oak  " — while 
King  John  delivers  the  eulogy,  with  as  much  satisfac- 
tion and  gravity  as  if  he  were  presiding  at  a  rousing 
political  meeting  "  out  west." 

An  Honored  Guest,  the  favorite  sister,  who   nearly 


170  B  E  UNION. 

halt' a  century  ago  played  with  her  brother  in  boughs  of 
the  fallen  Last  Red  Oak  of  "the  Old  Pontoosook 
Shades,"  -lands  at  his  right — a  dignified  matron,  with 
her  children  around  her. 

••  The  Ancient  Oak'1 — By  John  Howard  Bryant. 
Rehearsed  before  the  Old  Homestead  at  the  family 
reunion,  L866,  on  discovery  of  the  roots  of  the 
storied  tree — the  "historian  of  his  infancy." — The 
Downfallen  Monarch  of  "the  Old  Pontoosook  Shades.'1 

THE    A.NCIKNT    OAK. 

'Twas  many  a  year  ago, 

When  lite  with  me  Was  new. 
A  lordly  oak.  with  spreading  arms, 

By  my  mountain-dwelling  grew. 

O'er  the  roof  and  chimney-top, 

Uprose  that  glorious  tree  ; 
No  gianl   of  all  the  forests  round 

Had  mightier  boughs  than  he. 

( )n  the  silken  turf  below 

lie  cast  a  cool,  deep  shade, 
Where  oft,  till  the  summer  sun  went  down, 

Myself  and  my  Bister  played. 

We  planted  the  violel  there, 

And  there  t  he  pansy  leant  ; 
And  the  columbine,  with  Blender  Stems, 

T<»  t  be  Boft  June  breezes  bent. 

The  robin  warbled  abo>  <•. 

As  he  builded  his  house  of  clay  ; 
And  he  seemed  t<»  sing  with  a  livelier  n<>tr 

At  the  sight  of  our  mirthful  play. 


REUNION.  171 

And  there  in  the  sultry  noun, 

With  brawny  limbs  and  breast, 
On  the  silken  turf,  in  that  cool  shade, 

The  reaper  came  to  rest. 

When,  through  the  autumn  haze, 

The  golden  sunshine  came, 
His  crimson  summit  glowed  in  the  light, 

Like  a  spire  of  ruddy  flame. 

And  oft,  in  the  autumn  blast, 

The  acorns,  rattling  loud, 
Were  showered  on  our  roof,  like  the  big  round  hail 

That  falls  from  the  summer  cloud. 

And  higher  and  broader  still, 

With  the  rolling  years  he  grew; 
And  his  roots  were  deeper  and  firmer  set, 

The  more  the  rough  winds  blew. 

At  length,  in  an  evil  hour, 

The  axe  at  its  root  was  laid, 
And  he  fell,  with  all  his  boughs,  on  the  spot 

He  had  darkened  with  his  shade. 

And  into  the  prostrate  boughs 

We  climbed,  my  sister  and  I, 
And  swung,  'mid  the  shade  of  the  glossy  leaves, 

Till  the  stars  came  out  in  the  sky. 

All  day  we  swung  and  played, 

For  the  west  wind  gently  blew ; 
'Twas  the  day  that  the  post-boy  brought  the  news 

Of  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 

But  his  leaves  were  withered  soon, 

And  they  bore  his  trunk  away, 
And  the  blazing  sun  sh.one  in.  at  noon, 

On  the  place  of  our  early  play. 


R  E  UNION. 

And  the  weary  reaper  missed 
The  shade,  when  he  came  to  rest  ; 

And  the  robin  found  no  more  in  spring 
The  sprays  where  he  built  his  nest. 

Now  thirty  summers  arc  gone, 
And  thirty  winters  of  snow ; 
And  a  stranger  I  seek  the  paths  and  shades 

Where  I  rambled  long  ago. 

I  pause  where  the  glorious  oak 

His  boughs  to  the  blue  sky  spread, 

And  I  think  of  the  strong  and  beautiful 
Who  lie  among  the  dead. 

1  think,  with  a  bitter  pang, 
Of  the  days  in  which  1  played. 

Watched  by  kind  eyes  that  now  are  closed. 
Beneath  his  ample  shade. 


BOOK    V  I  I  I . 


CLOUDS    AND    SHADOWS 


THE  CLOUDS  ON  THE  HOME,  AND  THE  SHADOW  ON  THE 

HOMESTEAD. 


'R  A  N  C  E  S  FAIRCHILD 
B  R  Y  A  N  T  ,  "The  Fairest  of  the 
Rural  Maids,"  of  the  poet's  earlier 
songs,  was  not  at  "  the  Family  Re- 
union"— 1866.  Neither  was  our  Vet- 
eran Minstrel  there,  nor  his  children. 

Not  there?  Not  the  owner  of  the  threshold  and 
the  bride  of  his  youth?  A  mockery  of  a  Family 
Reunion  when  the  host  and  hostess  are  wanting, 
and  the  children  of  the  house  do  not  surround  the 
board ! 

The  minstrel  has  realized  his  ideal.  He  has  won 
fame  and  competence.  He  has  repossessed  him  of  the 
home    of  his    sires — fallen    into    alien  hands.     He  has 


17  1  CLOUDS     AM'     SHADOWS 

called  in  "the  Children  of  the  House"  from  The 
World's  Crusade!  Does  the  Minstrel  forsake  them 
at  the  threshold?  He,  who  commanded  the  portal  to 
be  opened,  shall  he  not  pledge  the  return?  What 
dashes  the  cup  from  liis  lip  \ 

The  same  Unseen  Power,  the  same  Mystic  Inter- 
ruption we  have  once  before  noted.  "  The  Conqueror 
of  Nations"  has  snatched  from  tin  Minstrel  "The 
Bride  of  a  Life-Time  ! " 

Ha!  what  have  we  here?  A  phase  of  the  Greek 
Nemesii — the  balancer  of  life?     It  would  thus  seem. 

Nemesis, — a  Greek  goddess  who  measured  out  to 
mortals  happiness  and  misery,  and  visited  with  Losses 
and  sufferings  all  who  were  Messed  with  too  many  gifts 
of  fortune. 

Quit  the  Bubject.  Question  not  the  gods  too 
closely  ! 


for  whom    the  "homestead-hall"  was    repurchased, 


Not  for  "posterity!"  Not  for  "the  world!"  Not 
for  an  Idler  to  writt  about  I 

Kami,  was  the  leasl  of  all  in  Bryant's  thoughts. 
Will  you  not  believe  his  own  words? 

The  place  was  repurchased  and  remodelled  with  a 
view  to  her  summer  residence  there  for  tin*  benefit  of 
the  mountain  air,  which  always  did  her  good,  and  was 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  175 

just  ready  for  her  when  siie  passed  away — summoned 
to  the  Great  All-Homestead — The  Father's  Mansion. 

CELESTIAL    CHORUS. 

The  Homestead  high  in  The  Heavens, — prepare, 
The  Bride  of  the  Minstrel  to  welcome  there! 
Shall  Max  oppose  his  will  to  Heaven  ? 
Shall  the  gift  of  the  altar  not  be  given? 
Can  the  Mental  vault  to  the  Moral  sphere 
If  the  Goal  of  the  Heart  is  centred  here? 
Oh,  heed  not  the  strain  of  an  earthly  shrine, 
But  list  the  voice  from  the  Realms  Divine: 
"  In  the  Homestead  high  the  Angels  prepare, 
The  Sire — awaiting  the  Bride — is  there!" 

Reader!  Hast  heard  of  old  sages — of  Plato,  Py- 
thagoras, Plotinus — men  who  read  God  in  the  universe, 
mirrored  as  a  hieroglyph,  and  who  revered  the  cosmos, 
nature,  humanity  as  the  outbirth  of  the  Divine — his 
imaging,  and  everlasting  consort.  As  even  Maha  Deva 
could  only  create  and  operate  by  the  agency  of  his 
Saeti,  so  God  nioveth  and  acts  by  the  cosmos.  The 
sages  all  taught  this,  from  Moses  to  Jesus,  from  Confu- 
cius and  Zoroaster  to  Plotinus,  Roger  Bacon,  Kepler, 
and  Goethe. 

EPISODE "  IDYL  :    BRIDE    OF    A    LIFE-TIME.1" 

Again,  the  shadow  of  Nemesis — again,  the  veritable 
u  Children  of  the  House'1  are  wanting  !  When  the  Great- 
All-Father   planned    His  Homestead-Book,   He   took 


1  76  OLO  l   D8     A  N  D     8  II  A  Do  V  s. 

good  care  that  the  Children  of  the  Bouse  should  not 
!»<■  left  out!  Oh,  cramped,  limited,  fettered  human 
endeavor  !     Mere  clay  element. 

Lite  Bays  Socrates,  ls  drama.  Why  the  intense 
nascent  drama  ill  all  nation-  of  the  CHILDREN  of  the 
House  1  Th.  Wanderers  in  the  Old  World*  and 
The  Genius  of  Home  in  the  New,*)* — with  the  "Idyl: 
Bride  <>t'  a  Life-Time,"  are  alike  -hut  out.  Are  we  to 
feel  a  tithe  <»f  his  disappointment  who  prepared  the 
Homestead  for  the  Sliest  already  summoned  to  the 
Father's  mansion?  Children  go  with  their  mother. 
The  daughters  inherit  their  mother's  dower.  In  the 
episode — " Idyl :  Bride  of  a  Life-Time"  the  veritable 
Children  of  the  House  come  in.  Pre-eminently — we 
live  in  the  Present.  Homestead-Jbooks  are  a  speciesof 
human  literature  whose  value,  like  wine,  is  evolved  by 
age.  Minor  elues  which  escape  both  historian  and 
biographer  find  their  place  at  the  homestead  shrine. 
"A  Home  is  where  one  quickens  happy  hearts."  The 
(tood  Angel  of  the  poet's  life-pilgrimage,  the  mistress 
of  both  Cedarmere  and  the  Homestead  Hall,  was  at 
home  in  the  local  Homestead-Book ;  proving  incontro- 
vertibly  the  genius  for  whom  this  shrine  was  retrieved: 
when.  Instead  of  reading  egotism  in  the  Bard,  you  would 
have  read  affection  in  the  husband.  We,  Readers 
of   Bryant — brought    up  from  our  very  infancy  upon 

'Tin-:  (J<ii)\vin>.  \  Mi>s   Bryant. 


CLOUDS    AXD     SHADOWS.  177 

his  poems,  j)eopled  his  old  Homestead  with  thought 
that  it  might  be  less  lonely !  Homestead-Looks  are  a 
peculiarly  social  species  of  human  literature — not  at  all 
grand — and  scarcely  amenable  to  criticism.  Each  home 
is  a  shrine.  In  every  Homestead-Hall  a  grave  is  there  ! 
You  would  not  pass  that  grave  without  scattering 
flowers !  Ah,  but  you  twine  a  wreath  unsuitable  for 
the  occasion !  If  twined  of  immortelles,  it  will  keep. 
So  you  take  back  your  wreath,  and  in  moments  of  heart - 
homao-e :  for  Schiller  savs  we  have  at  times  more  soul 
and  at  times  more  virtue  than  at  others — you  add  here 
a  grace — there  a  flower.  You  know  that  wreath  will 
not  die,  and  you  know,  moreover,  one  day  it  will  be 
called  for.  But  when  you  take  it  to  the  yenerable 
bard  and  tell  him  it  is  "  crushed  out,"  it  is  your 
heart  that  is  almost  broken.  You  wrote  the  whole 
book,  however  imperfect,  to  hang  that  garland  in  his 
Homestead-Hall !  And  then  he  takes  the  pen  in  his 
aged  hand,  and  writes  some  explanation  to  be  printed, 
when  you  know  he  would  rather  have  had  that  than 
any  thing  else  in  the  Homestead-Book — only  the  aes- 
thetic rerpiires  margin,  and  flowers  must  not  be  crushed  : 
you  know  that  he  is  feeling  intensely  and  bearing  it 
bravely — but  there  is  no  bravery  in  your  heart,  and  the 
moment  he  leaves  the  sanctum  table,  you  lay  your 
throbbing  head  upon  it,  and  cry  like  a  child. 

The    Homestead-Hall    is   like    to    be    peopled  with 
thought  and  feeling  ! 

23 


178  OLOUDS    AND    SHADOWS. 

The  author  had  prepared  an  episode  of  the  Do- 
mestic  Life  of  the  poet  whose  Homestead  is  the  subject 
of  this  work,  Illustrated  by  various  poems  of  his.  It 
was  to  be  a  sort  of  a  memorial  of  her  who  was  his  life- 
companion  for  nearly  half  a  century.  The  poems  from 
which  the  principal  motto  for  this  episode  was  taken 
are  the  celebrated  earlier  poems  familiar  to  the  poet's 
former  readers,  and  the  no  less  beautiful  ones  more 
familiar  to  the  readers  of  the  second  generation  through 
the  columns  of  the  journals  of  the  day.  Grouped  to? 
gether  the  entire  Life-Idyl  reads  thu- : 


Is  Memorial— The  Doweb  of  the  Minstrel's  Bride.— A 
Garland  of  Flowers  of  Poetry,  culled  by  the  Wat- 
side  of  Life,  during  a  Companionship  of  neably  Fifty- 
years, — A  Domestic  Idyl — Mottoes  prom  Hallece  and 
Schiller. — List  of  Bryant's  Poems. — The  Epithalamium. 
— '-On  Fairest  of  the  Rural  Maids."' — A  Summer  Ham- 
uli:.— A  Dream  of  Life. — Tin-:  Realm  <>i  the  Supersensual 
— The  Future  Life. — The  Snow-Shower. — The  Life  that 
[s. — Allegoric-Symbolic — The  Cloud  on  the  Way. — A 
Sick-Bed.  —  Draconis  Exstinctob  —  The  Conqueror's 
Gbave. — Requiem  Fantasia — Dies  Ik.f. — The  Voiceless 
Epitaph. —  Among  the  Trees. — The  Burial-Place,  w 
Kaklif.i:  Poem. — Anthology. — The  Twenty-Sk v enth  of 
March.— The  Birth-Day  Poem. — Floral  Symbolism. 
Oi  i:  Dual  Bora — Thallo  lnd  Carpo.-  Spring  and 
Autumn. 

Hut  this  part  of  the  work  would  have  enlarged  the 
volume  beyond  the  Bize  contemplated  by  the  publisher, 
so  it   was  therefore  omitted. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  179 

Strange  how  it  haunts  us  at  this  hour — The  Phan- 
torn  Hand  of  Willis  from  over  the  Grave  !  We  had, 
somewhere,  till  we  gave  it  away  for  the  autograph,  a 
genial  note  from  Willis,  penned  in  the  memorable  year 
I860,  expressing  his  pleasure  that  certain  pleasant  mem- 
ories of  the  departed  had  been  twined  into  a  garland 
that  could  grace  "  The  Home  Journal.*' 

Requiescat  in  pace.  We  give  here  the  article  as  it 
appeared  in  Willis's  paper,  with  his  own  introduction, 
written  when  he  doubtless  little  thought  that  he  was  so 
soon  to  join  the  "  innumerable  caravan,"  and  depart  for 

"  That  mysterious  realm,  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death." 


[A  lady-writer  of  great  originality — favors  us 
with  a  "  communication  which  we  are  honored  and 
pleased  to  publish  as  follows.  It  anticipates  a  subject 
of  which  Ave  were  personally  anxious  to  make  deferen- 
tial mention,  but  which  we  most  willingly  defer  to 
her  better-informed  intimacy  of  friendship  and  power  of 
description.  Mrs.  Bryant,  the  deceased  wife  of  our 
patriarch  bard,  the  first  and  greatest,  will  be  mentioned 
by  tributary  mourners,  many  and  far — the  present 
being  the  silence  of  her  just-closed  funeral,  and  the 
effect  of  the  tearful  sympathy  with  the  venerable 
survivor's  new  sorrow.     "  May  God  relieve  it,"  is  the 


1  mi  il.ii  D  DS    A  N  I)    6  II  A  DO  WS. 

prayer  of  a  whole  nation  to  whom  his  inspired  harp  is 
familiar  !  | — -n.  p.  w. 

Mrs,  Hale,  iii  her u  Woman's  Record,'1  containing 
some  two  thousand  sketches  of  distinguished  women, 
anions  her  introductory  remarks  expresses  the  following 
admirable  sentiment:  ''Millions  of  the  sex  whose  lives 
were  never  known  beyond  the  circle  of  their  home 
influences,  have  been  as  worthy  of  commendation  as 
those  here  commemorated.  Stars  arc  never  seen,  either 
through  the  dense  cloud  or  through  the  bright  sun- 
shine;  but  when  the  daylight  is  withdrawn  from  the 
clear  sky,  they  tremble  forth."  The  influence  of  star-  is 
eternal.  There  is  a  quiet  "Woman's  Influence"  that 
permeates  space;  that  refines,  ennobles,  and  purifies, 
without  obviously  setting  itself  forth.  Invisible,  we 
know  of  it  only  by  its  effect-.  Humanity  is  the 
richer,  wiser,  purer,  for  their  lives.  Some  accident 
attracts  us  to  the  study  of  this  phenomenon.  We  find 
it  to  be  the  silent  workings  of  the  moral  power — that 
intuitive  discernment  and  instinctive  obedience  of  the 
impulse  tending  toward  the  Good,  the  Beautiful,  the 
True.  This  strong  supersensual  influence  brought  to 
bear  on  the  actual  duties  of  life — triune  blending  of 
religion,  aesthetics,  and  poetry — woman's  natal  dower. 

We  are  drawn  into  the  above  train  of  thought  by 
receiving  the  sad  intelligence  of  the  death  of  Mrs. 
Feancbs  r.\nauiu>  Bryant — wife  of  our  venerable 
American  poet. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  181 

We  quote  from  a  sketch  written  dining  the  life  of 
this  estimable  lady :  "  Mrs.  Bryant  is  so  graphically 
depicted  in  her  husband's  poems,  little  more  can  be 
added.  Of  an  organization  extremely  sensitive  and 
delicate,  she  exists  among  us  as  a  poetic  creation — among 
her  humble  neighbors  as  the  Spirit  of  Charity.  The 
crowded  highway  rings  with  none  of  her  kind  deeds 
and  spirit-ministerings — for,  like  the  silent  streamlet  in 
the  meadow,  she  tells  no  tale  of  all  the  o-ood  she  does ; 
only,  humanity  is  fresher  where  she  dwells.  To  sum 
all  up,  she  is  the  Spirit  of  Home.1' 

THE    LIFE-PILGRDIAGE — THE    SPRIXG    OF    LIFE. 

The  first  record  we  find  is  in  volume  one  of  the 
poet's  works — wherein,  in  the  following  familiar  lines, 
we  recognize  the  "  Bride  of  his  Youth  ": — 

"  Oh  fairest  of  the  rural  maids  ! 
Thy  birth  was  in  the  forest  shades ; 
Green  boughs,  and  glimpses  of  the  sky, 
Were  all  that  met  thine  infant  eye. 

Thy  sports,  thy  wanderings,  when  a  child, 
Were  ever  in  the  sylvan  wild." 

Yet,  this  same  gentle  beino*  was  destined  to  be  the 
poet's  companion,  not  only  through  his  life-pilgrimage 
in  the  Xew  World,  but  in  his  dreamy  wanderings  in 
the  Old ;  and  the  light  footstep  that  roamed  the  forest 
glen  trod  with  him  the  ancient  ruins  of  Europe. 


L82  0  LO  l"  D8     A  N  1)    S  II  A  Do  W  8. 


Till]    SUMMEB    OF    LIFE. 

Pre-eminently  a  life-companion.  The  sharer  not 
only  of  hig  travels,  but  of  his  intense  inner  life — that 
absorbing,  self-concentrating  life  of  introspection  which 
Genius  t<><>  often  spends  alone.  But  here  i^  a  being  who 
shares  the  poet's  "better  moments;"  who  steals  into 
the  sanctum  ere  he  is  aware,  and,  like  a  silent  spirit, 
influences  him  without  herself  being  obvious.  Here  is 
a  dual  existence.  Already,  in  the  summer  of  their 
days,  arc  they  dreaming  of  "The  Future  Life." 

"How  shall  I  know  thee  in  the  sphere  which  keeps 
The  disembodied  spirits  of  the  dead, 
When  all  of  thee  that  time  could  wither  ^leej»- 
And  perishes  amongthe  dust  we  tread  ? 


A  happier  lot  than  mine,  and  larger  light, 

Await  thee  there  ;   for  thou  hast  bowed  thy  will 

In  cheerful  homage  t«>  the  rule  of  right, 
And  lovest  all,  and  renderesl  good  for  ill. 

For  me,  the  sordid  cares  in  which  1  dwell, 

Shrink  and  consume  my  heart,  as  heal  the  scroll  ; 

And  wrath  has  left  its  scar — that  fire  of  hell 
lias  left   its  frightful  scar  upon  my  soul." 

A  grand  concession  from  both  the  sensitive  port  and 
the  jaded  journalist  (for  both  characters  are  in  Bryant 

Combined  )  of   what    man    owes   to    the    grand   m<>i<ll<    id' 

womanhood. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  183 

In  kk  The  Future  Life  "  we  feel  that  we  have  before 
us  the  great  outlines  of  an  intense  life-poem  at  our 
threshold — whose  truth  comes  home  to  the  heart  of 
husband,  son,  or  brother,  who  has  ever  looked  to 
woman  in  moments  of  doubt  and  perplexity. 

THE    AUTUMN    OF    LIFE. 

The  poet  and  the  fragile  invalid  are  wandering  in 
Southern  Europe  in  search  of  health.  They  reach  the 
balmy  shores  of  Italy,  when  there  suddenly  rises  "The 
Cloud  on  the  Way."  A  mystical  allegory,  which  we 
leave  the  reader  to  ponder — quoting  only  the  intro- 
ductorv  lines. 


"See  before  us,  in  our  journey,  broods  a  mist  upon  the  ground  ; 
Thither  leads  the  path  we  walk  in.  blending  with  that  gloomy 

bound. 
Never    eye    hath    joierced    its    shadows    to    the    mystery    they 

screen ; 
Those  who   once   have   passed   within   it    never   more  on  earth 

are  seen. 


Thou  who,  in  this  flinty  pathway,  leading  through  a  stranger 
land, 

Passest  down  the  rocky  valley,  walking  with  me  hand  in 
hand, 

Which  of  us  shall  be  the  soonest  folded  to  that  dim  Un- 
known ? 

Which  shall  leave  the  other  walking  in  this  flinty  path 
alone  ': " 


L84  CLOUDS    AND    SHADOWS". 

This  poem  dates  its  origin  soon  after  Mrs.  Bryant's 
serious  illness  at  Naples  (during  their  travels,  in 
1857— '8),  when  they  were  accompanied  by  their  young- 
est daughter.*  The  recovery  of  the  invalid,  the  passing 
over  of  the  cloud  of  mystery,  is  feelingly  and  gratefully 
commemorated  by  "The  Life  that  is,"  dated  "Castella- 
mare,  May,  1858":— 

"  Twice  wert  thou  given  me ;  once  in  thy  fair  prime, 
Fresh  from  the  fields  of  youth,  when  first  we  met, 
And  all  the  blossoms  of  that  hopeful  time 
Clustered  and  glowed  where'er  thy  steps  were  set. 

And  now,  in  thy  ripe  autumn,  once  again 
Given  back  to  fervent  prayers  and  yearnings  strong, 

From  the  drear  realm  of  sickness  and  of  pain, 

When  we  had  watched,  and  feared,  and  trembled  long." 

THE    WINTER    OF    LIFE. 

There  is  a  poem  of  Bryant's,  illustrated  by  his  own 
hands,  but  not  included  among  his  numerous  editions. 
The  best  <>f  his  heart  is  enshrined  therein — yet  he  with- 
held- it  from  the  world.  It  is  his  home.  Standing  on 
the  sh<>re<  of  the  south  of  France,  the  Sea — that  mystic 
telegraph  ever  intelligible  to  him — communicating  with 
the  tides  setting  in  upon  his  domain  in  Roslyn — called, 
with  it-  spirit  voice,  kk('<>me  home."  They  obeyed. 
And  the  fragile  pilgrim  bade  farewell  to  the  Old  World. 

*  To  whom   the  joyous  lines,  "An    Invitation  to  the  Country,"  ire 
addressed, 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  185 

Once  more  we  see  the  poet  and  his  companion. 
They  are  in  their  own  Home.  The  window  overlooks 
the  sylvan  lake — spanned  by  the  fairy  bridge.  It  is  a 
genial  winter.  Their  season  of  life  is  winter ;  and  it  is 
srenial.     The   susrerestions  of  the  hour — are  of  winter ; 

O  DC 

but  they  do  not  chill. 

"  Stand  here  by  my  side  and  turn,  I  pray, 
On  the  lake  below  thy  gentle  eyes  ; 
The  clouds  hang  over  it,  heavy  and  gray, 

And  dark  and  silent  the  water  lies  ; 
And  out  of  that  frozen  mist  the  snow 
In  wavering  flakes  begins  to  flow ; 

Flake  after  flake 
Thev  sink  in  the  dark  and  silent  lake. 


And  some,  as  on  tender  wings  they  glide 
From  their  chilly  birth-cloud,  dim  and  gray, 

Are  joined  in  their  fall,  and,  side  by  side, 
Come  clinging  along  their  unsteady  way ; 

As  friend  with  friend,  or  husband  with  wife 

Makes  hand  in  hand  the  passage  of  life ; 
Each  mated  flake 

Soon  sinks  in  the  dark  and  silent  lake." 

The  prayer  was  yet  to  arise — u  Spare  him  thrice  the 
Bride  of  his  Youth  !"  But  the  Christian  bowed  him  to 
the  will  of  his  God. 

After  a  long  illness,  borne  with  sublime  fortitude, 
she  peacefully  closed  her  eyes,  on  the  morning  of  the 
twenty-seventh  of  July,  in  her  seventieth  year.  Her 
remains  were  consigned  to  the  earth  on  the  morning  of 

24 


L86  CLOUDS    a  N  I)    8HADO  W  >. 

the  thirtieth.  Tfo  aiohbed  was  watched  by  the  uAged 
Minstrel"  and  his  youngest  daughter,  and  one  dear  and 
sympathizing  friend  from  Brooklyn,  who  for  ten  weeks 
kept,  night  after  night,  her  constant  station  by  the 
couch  of  the  Bufferer.* 

The  morale  of  her  life?    Yon  will  find  it  in  uThe 
Conqueror's  Grave  ": — 

'•She  met  the  host  of  Sorrow  with  a  look 

That  altered  not  beneath  the  frown  they  wore. 
And  soon  the  lowering  brood  were  tamed,  and  took, 

Meekly,  her  gentle  rule,  and  frowned  no  more 
Her  soft  hand  put  aside  the  assaults  of  wrath, 
And  calmly  broke  in  t  wain 
The  fiery  shaft--  of  pain, 
And  rent  the  nets  of  passion  from  her  path. 
By  that  victorious  hand  despair  was  slain. 
With  love  she  vanquished  hate  and  overcame 
Evil  with  good,  in  her  Great  Master's  name." 


Those  most  familiar  with  the  usages  of  homestead- 
books  understand  that  they  constitute  a  specie-  of 
literature  scarcely  amenable  to  the  crucial  test  of  trade- 
Bale  taste.  Each  is  more  or  less  unique,  and  freedom  is 
riven    and    taken    to    include    what    would    hardly    be 

Mr-.  Fanny  Bryanl  Godwin,  wife  of  Parke  Godwin,  Esq.,  was  ab- 
sent, with  her  interesting  family,  in  Europe.  None  of  the  grandchildren 
wereal  the  grave;  but  the  -.rue  mystic  messenger  thai  once  called  to  the 
poel  on  the  Bhores  of  France  will  waft,  in  the  familiar  voice  of  the  Bonn 
Journal,  the  mournful  news  that  the  gentle  pilgrim  now  sleeps  on  the  Bod 
of  the  wave-washed  Roslyn. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  187 

allowed  in  any  other  kind  of  book.  Homestead-books 
enshrine  the  local,  the  trivial,  the  human.  It  is  merely 
a  style  of  writing  one's  name  on  the  face  of  the  earth : 
of  leaving  one's  mark  on  The  Great  All-Homestead. 
The  motley  literature  of  homestead-books  is  coming 
more  and  more  into  vogue  every  day.  But  such  books 
cannot  pass  without  being  submitted  to  the  test  of 
review  by  the  owner  of  said.  land.  There  is  truth  in 
the  proverb — "  It  is  to  be  supposed  a  man  knows  most 
about  his  own  homestead  ( "  Therefore,  homestead- 
books  are  thus  submitted. 

THE    RAVINE. JOHNNO    BROOK. 

The  Johnno  Brook,  of  which  Hows  has  given  us  so 
charming  a  glimpse,  flows  through  a  deep  ravine,  over- 
shadowed by  lofty  trees  of  the  red-birch,  the  canoe-birch 
with  its  snow-white  columnar  stems,  the  hemlock,  the 
spruce,  and  the  sugar-maple,  over  a  bed  of  rocks  and 
stones,  from  which  every  particle  of  mould  was  swept 
by  the  spring  floods,  thousands  of  years  ago.  Here  is 
the  silence  of  the  primeval  forest ;  no  sinirinof  birds  are 
heard  in  early  summer ;  the  only  note  of  bird  which  is 
heard  in  the  solitude  is  the  occasional  shriek  of  the 
hawk,  or  the  cawing  of  the  crow  from  the  highest  of  the 
tree-tops,  and,  more  rarely,  the  scream  of  the  jay.  This 
is  Nature's  withdrawing-roorn.  She  herself  is  at  home, 
but  the  world  is  shut  out. 


L88  U  LO  l  D.8     A  \  I)    >  II  A  DO  WS. 

A    FAVORITE    HAUNT. 

u,Mong  the  deep-cloven  fella  that  tor  ages  had  listened 
'1'..  the  rush  of  the  pebble-paved  river  between, 
Where  the  kingfisher  screamed  and  gray  precipice  glistened, 
All  breathless  with  awe  have  I  gazed  on  the  scene; 

Till  I  felt  the  dark  power  o'er  my  reveries  stealing, 
From  the  gloom  of  the  thickets  that  over  me  hung, 

And  the  thoughts  that  awoke,  in  that  rapture  of  feeling, 
Were  formed  into  verse  as  they  rose  to  my  tongue." 

We  warned  thee,  O  Reader,  as  far  back  in  the  ages 
as  Book  II.,  that  the  "lines  <>n  Revisiting  the  Country," 
containing,  among  divers  other  things,  Thk  MOUNTAIN 
Wind,  the  <j<niu.s  loci — that  that  poem  was  an  opal- 
escent one:  a  gem  in  various  phases.  It  is  the  poem 
that  teaches  us  how  "Little  Fanny"  was  educated. 
(This  is  "Little  Fanny's"  first  introduction  into  society, 
the  hall  of  her  grandsires,  and  poetical  justice  forces  U8 
to  concede  that  she  acted  her  part  in  the  latent  drama 
with  infinite  grace.)  It  expresses,  by  various  allusions, 
the  return  to  the  homestead  of  the  whilom  bride,  now 
a  young  mother ;  and  although  only  the  child  is  intro- 
duced in  the  poem,  we  know  the  mother  is  there.  And 
we  know  that  other  walks  will  be  faken  when  the  sym- 
pathetic  little  companion  is  safe  asleep  under  the  old 
mossy  roof-tree,  when  the  poel  ami  his  lite-companion 
will  hunt  uj>  all  the  <|><>t^  haunted  by  early  memories. 

Retum    for    the    last  time,  Reader,  and   view    the   SCe« 

narium  of  one  of  those  brawling  streams  lying  deep  and 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  191 

almost  out  of  sight  in  their  cool  and  shaded  glens — 
streams  such  as  the  Greeks  worshipped,  and  such  as 
are  found  at  our  threshold  in  old  Schoharie,  and  the 
recently-discovered  w"  Salisbury  Cave."  Connecticut, 
which  we  opine  is  of  the  same  conformation  as  the 
k'  Schoharie  Cave  ;"  a  subterranean  stream  in  this  earth- 
cave  of  Northern  New  York,  extending  some  eight 
miles  underground,  has  hollowed  out  its  pathway  in 
darkness  among  strata  of  rock.  Unless  we  are  much 
mistaken  in  geologic  lore,  this  is  the  species  of  "  brawl- 
ing streamlet  "  that  constitutes  one  of  the  local  features 
of  the  Cumminoton  region. 


Thy  wavelets  gush,  we  hear  their  cooling  plash.- 
Thy  urn  is  emptied  into  depths  profound  ; 

Thy  ripplets  murmur,  and  we  list  the  dash 
Of  thy  mysterious  cataract  underground. 


But  whence  thou  coni'st  and  whither  go'st,  in  vain 
For  us  to  ask  thy  subterranean  wall ! 

Earth's  mighty  dome  re-echoes  back  again, 
And  onlv  echo  answers  when  we  call. 


We  do  not  say  that  the  Cummington  streams  are  on 
quite  such  a  broad  scale  of  the  vague  intangible  as  this 
veritable  "  Darkling  Eiver  " — which  ear  has  heard,  but 
human  eve  has  never  seen — but  we  bid  the  reader  take 
one  more  good  view  of  the  Homestead  scenarium.  AVe 
go  back,. as  the  poet's  fancy  goes  back,  to  the  home  of  his 
bovhood.     The  Schoharie  and  Salisburv  streams  flow  in 


192  CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS. 

glens  which  arc  roofed  over  with  vaults  of  rock— the 
deep  hollows  of  the  CummingtoD  stream  have  do  roof 
l>ut  the  umbrage  of  trees  and  the  overarching  sky. 

The  Ravine  represents  the  objective — the  tangible; 
concentrating  for  the  last  time  the  memorable  Home- 
-lead  emotions, — the  aesthetic,  the  symbolic,  the  poetic, 
the  naturalistic,  the  human,  the  suprasensual. 

TWILIGHT. WHAT    IS    ILLUSION  { 

"I  have  received  your  kind  letter,  and  thank  you  for  your 
sympathy,  which  I  already  knew  I  had.  One  knows  riot  in  such 
cases  whether  it  is  better  to  let  grief  have  its  natural  way,  or  by 
the  aid  which  culture  offers  us,  to  bear  up  against  it.  If  cue 
resolves  on  the  latter,  as  I  always  do,  one  is  thereby  bettered  only 
for  the  moment,  and  I  have  remarked  that  nature  always  at  one  time 
or  other  asserts  her  rights." — Goethe  t<>  S<  miller  in  affliction. 

"There  is  an  evening  twilight  of  the  heart,"  a 
dreamy,  sen u-suprasensual  light — half  earth,  half  heaven 
—in  whose  changeful  demitones  one  views  old  familiar 
scenes  alone, — and  yet  solitude  is  peopled  with  the 
Has  Been  !  We,  of  the  Present,  are  alone  actors  on 
the  stage  of  The  Now.  Yet  we  draw  a  shadowy  train 
— a  suprasensual  chorus:  these  are  Memories.  Close 
your  eyes  dreamily.  They  will  flock  to  you ;  they  will 
lay  their  phantom  hands  upon  your  brow;  they  will 
caress    -bless  yon.     You  know  this. 

The  flood-gates  of  your  heart  will  be  opened.  'Those 
iron  flood-gates,  that    you    resolved  should  be  forever 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  193 

closed  !  You  willed  that  the  great  tide  of  human  feel- 
ing should  be  for  evermore  pent  up.  Nay :  deny  it  not. 
You  willed,  proud,  self-sustained  mortal,  to  immure 
all  emotion  within  your  own  frail  breast  of  clay  ! 

Temeraire.  Let  stoicism  bind  and  rivet  thy  breast 
with  bands  of  steel.  She,  who  by  the  breath  of  spring 
can  crumble  winter's  gyves  with  gentle  might,  will  not 
let  thee,  her  votary,  escape  ! 

Nature, — the  Magna  Deorfm  Mater  of  the  starry 
Greek, — the  omnipotent  earth-mother,  wills  that  thou 
shalt  still  be  human.  Which  is  the  greater  I  Thou, 
frail  mortal,  or  the  all-embracer  ?  Once  didst  thou 
cling  to  thy  fond  nurse :  she  who  spread  with  careful 
hands  The  Moss-Carpet  for  thee.  Ha !  that  touches 
thee.  Again  the  infinitesimal  moss  is  dearer  to  thee 
than  the  lofty  tree ;  the  lordly  cloud-compeller. 

O  Cycles  of  Life. 

You  throw  yourself  upon  the  ground,  and  weep  ! 
The  impersonal  Greek  would  say — you  rush  into  the 
arms,  you  clasp  the  breast  of  the  Great  All-Mother, 
and  are  again  a  child  ! 

Does  she  comfort  you  I  Manhood's  tears  are  bitter : 
but  they  clear  the  vision.  You  rise :  you  look  around. 
"  The  rainbow  of  the  heart  is  hovering  there.'1 

You  have  not  been  alone  wrestling  with  your  great 
grief.  Halleck  was  near.  Is  this  what  he  meant  by 
"  Twilight  r  We  know  not.  Perhaps  we  have  not 
interpreted  his  symbolic  phantoms  as  well  as  he  trans- 

25 


1!>4  0LOUD8     AND     shadows. 

lated  Goethe's  bu1  we  like  "twilight."  Quit  The 
Ravi/ru  with  twilight. 

Two  of  IIallkck's  most  admirable  poems  for  rich- 
ness, delicacy,  tone,  and  finish  are  liis  Twilight^  of 
which  we  have  caught  the  expiring  gleam,  and  his  trans- 
lation of  Goethe's  dedication  of  Faust  We  never 
read  this  dedication  without  thinking  of  our  Bryant. 
Goethe  was  in  his  ninth  decade.  What  matters  a 
decade  when  life  ranks  l>y  cycles: — 

"They  hear  not  those  my  last  songs,  they  whose  greeting 
Gladdened  my  first  ;  my  spring-time  friends  are  gone, 

And  gone,  fast  journeying  from  the  place  of  meeting, 
The  echoes  of  their  welcome,  one  by  one. 

Though  stranger  crowds,  my  listeners  Bince,  are  beating 
Time  to  my  music,  their  applauding  tone 

More  grieve8  than  glads  me,  while  the  tried  and  true, 
[f  yet  OD  earth,  are  wandering  far  and  few." 

TO    THE    MATERIALISTIC    READER, 

Thou,  who  wonderest  why  we  put  the  Homestead- 

Ilall  under  ban — why  we  conjure  idle  thoughts  to 
stock  that  cockloft — why  we  centre  round  the  home- 
stead all  that  is  human — wonder  still, — words  can 
never  explain  the  enigma.* 

*  The  nucleus  of  this  Homestead-book  dates  hack  to  the  days  of 
Wnii-:  while  the  elaboration  is  an  attempt  to  divert  our  Bard  from  ex- 
cessive introspection.  Most  dreaded  by  his  physician  is  disease  of  the 
lienrl  — the  coraplainl  which  carried  off  his  wife.  So  we  direct  all  genuine 
friends  i<>  cultivate  cheerfulness.  Let  there  be  no  more  asking  Bbtaht  t<> 
act  as  pall-bearer.  He  bad  assisted  at  the  obsequies  of  one  of  his  earlier 
friends,  Mi-.  Alfred  B.  Pell,  when  he  had  his  worst  attack. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS. 


195 


FLORAL    SYMBOLISM. BIRTH-MONTH    FLOWERS. 


LIS    DE    SOLEIL. 


Turf- Altars  of  the  Heart — will  crave 
Their  meed  of  homage  o'er  the  grave. 


CEDAEMEEE. 

Where — "  upon  the  hillside,  all  hardened  into  iron, 
Howling,  like  a  wolf,  flies  the  famished  northern  blast. 

Grand  horizon-plane  of  the  region  round  about. 
We  give  the  horizon-plane  of  the  Old  Homestead,  and 
we  know  not  why  we  should  not  give  the  scenarium  of 
The  Poet's  Home, — they  are  aesthetically  connected. 

Imagine  Long  Island  primarily  belonging  to  Con- 
necticut :    and    then    imagine    "  the    Darkling   River f 

*  So  called  by  the  poet  from  the  redundancy  of  cedars  on  the  domain. 


196  OLOUDS     ANli     SHADOWS. 

ploughing  Its  course  through,  to  debouche  by  the  bland 
of  Manhattan  through  the  New  YorkJ^arrows.  We  <!<> 
not  Bay  thai  ever  a  current  from  the  ocean  set  in  this 
way,  forming  Long  bland  Sound  ;  but  the  north  side 
of  Long  Island,  abounding  in  abrupt,  picturesque 
Bcenery,  favors  this  broad  conclusion. 

The  grounds  are  uneven;  apparently  in  the  same 
tumultuous  state  in  which  they  might  have  been  left 
after  a  violent  upheaval  of  the  earth  in  sonic  commotion 
of  the  elements,  yet  clothed  with  foliage  peculiar  to  the 
region, — cedars,  kalmias,  and  graceful  birches,  l>oth 
dwarf  and  forest  oaks,  and  gadding  vines.  The  kalmia, 
familiarly  called  American  laurel,  is  a  peculiarity  of  the 
steep  bluffs,  and  the  poet  has  rendered  the  very  aspect 
of  the  region — objectively  and  subjectively — -in  the 
following  symbolic  poem  : — 

"  earth's  children  cleave  to  earth." 

Earth's  children  cleave  to  Earth— her  frail 

Decaying  children  dread  decay. 
Yon  wreath  of  mist  that  Leaves  the  vale 

And  lessens  in  the  morning  ray: 
Look,  how,  by  mountain  rivulet, 

It  Lingers  as  it  upward  creeps, 
And  clings  t«>  fern  and  copsewood  set 

Along  the  green  and  dewy  steeps: 

Clings  to  the  flowery  kalmia,  clings 

T<>  precipices  fringed  with  grass, 
Dark  maples  where  the  wood-thrush  sin<_rs, 

And  bowers  of  fragranl  sassafras. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  197 

Yet  all  in  vain — it  passes  still 

From  hold  to  hold,  it  cannot  stay, 
And  in  the  very  beams  that  till 

The  world  with  glory,  wastes  away, 
Till,  parting  from  the  mountain's  brow, 

It  vanishes  from  human  eye, 
And  that  which  sprung  of  earth  is  now 

A  portion,  of  the  glorious  sky. 

The  point  cVappui,  the  beacon-staff  to  which  one 
must  cling  to  take  the  following  view  of  the  scenarium, 
is  planted  on  an  eminence  ascending  in  abrupt  natural 
terraces.  The  soil  of  these  sandy  sloj>es  is  held  together 
by  fibrous  mosses  and  creeping  plants.  They  have  been 
formed  into  natural  terraces  by  the  earth-weight  accu- 
initiated  by  the  debris  of  primeval  trees, — now  resolved 
into  fungi, — showing  here  and  there  a  stump  crowned 
with  shrubbery  and  trailing  plants.  Vines  are  every- 
where. 

Our  glance  is  from  the  termination  of  a  rectangular 
plateau, — sheltered  from  the  noontide  sun  by  clustering 
birches, — commanding  the  view  of  a  village  half  seen 
among  its  trees  in  a  hollow  of  the  hill ;  the  woody 
summit  of  a  neighboring  height ;  a  low  foreground  of 
creek-marsh ;  two  placid  lakelets  bordered  by  brook- 
herbage,  willows,  and  cedars;  a  bridge  leading  to  a 
causeway,  or  dyke,  along  which  runs  a  shaded  path, 
among  trees  and  flowering  shrubs — 

While  steadily  the  millstone  hums 
Down  in  the  willowy  vale. 

Sony  of  the  Sower.' 


198  CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS. 

A  pretty  mill  built  by  the  poet  takes  the  place  of 
an  old  one  consumed  by  ftre.  This  mill  is  built  some- 
w  hat  in  the  style  of  the  Swiss  cottage  on  the  domain,  the 

natural  wood-color  [a  preserved  by  oil,  and  the  tout 
ensemble  is  harmonious  in  tone,  and,  for  a  New  World 
mill,  it  certainly  is  very  poetical  exteriorly,  and  we  pre- 
sume as  useful  interiorly.  We  think  we  can  find  a  use 
for  that  picturesque  mill  and  that  humming  mill-wheel. 
From  this  mill,  this  poet's  mill,  where  the  great  corn- 
thought  of  ages  gets  ground — a  silver  stream,  like  a 
glittering  thread,  parts  the  oozy  hanks  of  sedge-grass, 
while  far  beyond — ebbing — flowing — tosses  the  harbor 
upon  whose  bosom  rocks  many  an  idle  skiff  of  pleasure. 
Afar,  in  the  extreme  distance,  is  unfolded  the  panorama 
«»f -The  Darkling  River," 

Where  sails  ti it  to  and  fro 
Like  spirits  voyaging  on 

Time's  sea  into  eternity, — 
A  moment  seen,  and  gone! 

But  where  is  the  poet's  home,  0  Idler?  You  have 
depicted  every,  thing  but  that. 

Where  should  the  poet's  home  be,  O  fault-finding 
reader!  but  [n VISIBLE?  It  is  yon  that  are  at  fault. 
You  have  overlooked  it,  each  way.  When  we  were  in 
the  little  skiff  idly  swaying  in  the  tides,  you  saw  it: 
and  you  saw  it  not!  When  we  were  on  the  emi- 
nence, you  overlooked  it.  You  glanced  al  the  nest 
of    forest-trees    and    wopdland-copse,    a    little    lakelet 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  199 

spanned  by  a  fairy  bridge,  and  yon  saw  the  re- 
flection of  sunlight  glittering  on  the  windows  of  the 
Swiss  cottage,  but  yon  did  not  see  the  mansion  !  It  is 
not  our  fault.     We  will  show  it  yon. 

DOMAIN    OF    BRYANT. 

Rosltx,  Long  Island. — The  Poet's  Home. — A  General  Hori- 
zon View. 

Two  views  from  which  the  ideal  of  the  Bryant  do- 
main can  be  best  gathered.  The  first  is  from  a  hiidi 
eminence  known  in  the  olden  time  as  "  Maple  Hill." 
This  overlooks  the  modern  neighborhood  of  Roslyn. 
The  second  view,  from  whence  leisurely  and  idly  to  im- 
bibe the  esthetics  of  the  poet's  home,  is  in  a  little  skiff 
off  in  the  bine  harbor,  rhythmically  swaying  in  the 
tides. 

"Descend  from  your  eagle's  cyry  to  the  shell-strewn  beach  below. 
Listen  to  the  wave-chimes. 
Flow — ebb — flow  ! 
The  billowTs  come  dancing  up  at  our  feet,  sunny  smiles  wreath- 
ing their  pearly  lips. 

Ebb— flow— ebb  !" 

catches  the  eternal  refrain  in  sounding  symphony. 
Yet  there  is  no  monotony.  The  sea  is  not  a  mechanical 
onmn.  There  is  infinite  variety  in  the  sounds  which  it 
gives  forth,  jet  it  is  a  subtle  variety,  governed  by  a 
systematic  cadence  of  wave-sound.  These  are  respira- 
tions of  the  mighty  sea-soul,  mild  pulses  in  the  veins — 


200  0  LO  I    D8     A  N  D     8  II  A  DO  W  s. 

not  the  majestic  beatings  of  the  heart  of  old  ocean.  You 
strive  in  vain  to  catch    this  mystic  sea-pulse.     It  is  a 

duet  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  1  mt  when  you  en- 
deavor to  reduce  its  rhythm  to  any  regular  law,  \  ou  make 
it  mechanical:  whereas,  the  tides  are  not  mechanical. 
With  a  deep-drawn  Bigh  you  abandon  the  Btudy  of  the 
waves.  You  cannot  so  deal  with  the  tides  of  the  ocean, 
an\  more  than  with  the  music  of  (lie  tides  of  life! 
That,  too,  is  a  subtle  symphony,  a  duet  of  attraction  and 
repulsion.  You  grasp  the  symbolism  of  both;  hut  you 
cannot    re-create  them:   you  cannot   master  them  ! 

But  you  have  studied  them!  The  sea  is  a  great 
Educator,  and  lying  off  in  the  little  skiff,  idly  musing, 
your  eye  is  attracted  by  a  brown  mansion  almost  smoth- 
ered in  foliage — forest  foliage  mostly.  It  is  autumn: 
and  your  favorite  "ruby-vine,"  the  Virginia  creeper, 
crowns  the  dark-green  cedar.  That  cedar,  wreathed 
with  "ruby-vine,"  is  your  especial  favorite!'""  Here  and 
there,  on  all  sides,  are  dark-green  cedars,  and  above  all 
i-  spread  the  ethereal  "blue  of  the  sweet  moral  heaven." 
On  the  summit  of  a  bluff-like  hill  you  espy  a  dainty 
summer-house.      On  the  right  rises  a  mountainous  hill 

\\  hether  the  weird  chameleon-mantled  cedar  ia  Btanding  now,  we  can- 
no1  saj .  Borne  j  eara  ago  there  was  on  this  land  a  cedar  hocage,  which  some- 
tiniea  got  called  Syeorax — Bometimea  Dejanira.  The  ruby-vine,  tinged 
with  frost,  changed  regularly  through  the  gamul  of  color  from"  Peruvian 
gold"  to  scarlet,  crimson,  ruby-brown.  One  could  Bcarce  keep  hands  off 
this  beautiful  chameleon- vine,  heightened  as  it  was  by  contrast  with  the 
dark-green  cedar.  But  touch  it — you  were  pouoned.  Hence  ita  weird 
iobriquets. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  201 

(for  Long  Island),  and  just  out  of  sight  is  the  lane  lead- 
ing to  Our  Apple-Tree  !  and  posterity's  apple-tree. 

Do  you  see  all  this  from  the  tides  i  Who  knows 
what  one  sees  with  the  eye  and  what  one  sees  with  the 
mind  \  If  one  cannot  conveniently  lay  one's  hand  on 
the  real,  grasp  the  ideal. 

Oli,  mystic  are  the  tides  of  life, 
The  ebb  and  flow  of  love  and  strife  ; 
They  lave  the  strand  of  shores  unknown. 
These  wavelets  from  our  earthly  zone  ! 

The  poet  is  on  the  bluff;  the  tides  are  at  his  feet. 
He  catches  the  symphony  of  both  Land  and  Sea. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  his  minor  poems.  A  lyric 
that  never  could  have  been  written  in  cold  blood. 
There  is  furore  here. 

THE    TIDES. 

The  moon  is  at  her  full,  and,  riding  high, 

Floods  the  calm  fields  with  light 
The  airs  that  hover  in  the  summer  sky 

Are  all  asleep  to-night. 

There  comes  no  voice  from  the  great  woodlands  round 

That  murmured  all  the  day  ; 
Beneath  the  shadow  of  their  boughs,  the  ground 

Is  not  more  still  than  they. 

But  ever  heaves  and  moans  the  restless  Deep; 

His  rising  tides  I  hear, 
Afar  I  see  the  .glimmering  billows  leap; 

I  see  them  breaking  near. 

20 


1>(H>  OLO  D  D8     A  N  I)    SII  A  Do  W  S  . 

Each  wave  springs  upward,  climbing  toward  the  fair, 

Pure  light  thai  sits  on  high — 
Springs  eagerly,  and  faintly  sinks,  to  where 

The  mother  water-  lie. 


Upward  again  it  swells;  the  mooubeams  show 

Again  its  glimmering  crest  ; 
Again  it  feels  the  fatal  weight  below, 

And  sinks,  but  not  to  rest. 


Again  and  yet  again;  until  the  Deep 

Recalls  his  brood  of  waves  ; 
And,  with  a  sullen  moan,  abashed,  they  creep 

Back  to  his  inner  ea\  es. 


Brief  respite  I  they  shall  rush  from  that  recess 

With  noise  and  tumult  soon, 
And  fling  themselves,  with  unavailing  Btress, 

Up  toward  the  placid  moon. 


Oh, restless  Sea,  that,  in  thy  prison  here, 

Dost  struggle  and  complain; 
Through  the  slow  centuries  yearning  to  be  near 

To  that  fair  orb  in  vain ; 


The  glorious  source  of  light  and  heal  must   warm 

Thy  billows  from  <>n  high, 
Ami  change  them  to  the  cloudy  trains  that  form 

The  curtains  of  the  sky. 


Then  only  may  they  leave  the  waste  of  brine 

In  which  they  welter  here. 

And  rise  above  the  hills  of  earth,  and  shine 

In  a  screncr  sphere. 


CLOUDS     AND     SHADOWS.  203 

We  have  rocked  in  these  tides  in  a  little  skiff, 
while  the  Necromancer  was  on  the  bluff  above  them. 

It  has  been  said  that  of  all  the  thirty  poems  which 
composed  the  author's  last  and  best  volume,  that  "  The 
Tides  v  had  more  of  the  poetic  ideal  than  any  other. 

FAREWELL    TO    THE    HOMESTEAD. 

From  the  shores  of  the  wave-washed  Boslyn, 
Reader,  take  thy  last  look  at  the  Hills  of  Cumming- 
ton.  Spare  a  thought  for  her  for  whom  the  Bryant 
Homestead  was  retrieved  ;  whose  memory,  as  well  as 
that  of  onr  poet,  is  centred  in  the  hermitage  of  the  Old 
Pontoosook  shades.  Regard  this  hermitage  of  the 
heart  a  dual  shrine :  consecrated,  Lamartlxe  might 
say.  not  only  to  genius,  but  to  affection.  He  who  is 
above  humanity  is  above  human  sympathy.  Our 
venerable  minstrel  retrieved  the  Home  of  his  Sires  for 
the  Bride  of  a  Life-Time.  It  is  well  that  these  domes- 
tic idyls  sink  deep  into  the  soul  in  the  morn  of  onr 
nationality.  It  is  well  that  they  be  enshrined  with  the 
familiar,  the  genial,  the  every  day  of  homestead  life.  O 
transitorv  human  life  !  Does  the  intangible  aesthetic 
alone  remain  I  Poor  \Villis  was  pleased  with  the 
aesthetic.  (An  American.)  Lamartixe  guards  the  aes- 
thetic. (A  Frenchman.)  Schiller  pleads  for  life-idyls. 
(A  German.)  Have  they  all  left  us  \  No.  They  are 
with  us  in  art.  AVas  AVillis  right  t  Is  the  element 
of  the  aesthetic  the  time-surviving  \ 


•204 


0  LOUD  8     AND     SHADOWS. 


WHAT    IB    AN     IDYL  i 

Schiller  believes  idyls  can  be  carried  through 
from  the  primal  rural  plane  ap  the  gradations  of  culti- 
vated transition,  till  the  soul-repose  of  quiescence  La 
reached  in  mental  cultivation.  If  so,  then  is  UI%  Fair- 
est of  the  Rural  Maids"  the  idyl  of  the  Bride  of  a 
Life-Time. 

Double-Chorus.     Terrestrial  and  Celestial  uniting. 

MULTITUDINOUS. 

For  the  homestead  in  heaven — prepare,  prepare, 

The  Bride  of  the  Soul — is  there — is  there  ! 

Earth  homes  are  but  a  symbol  given  ; 

A  type  of  the  great  all-home  in  heaven. 

Earth  homes  arc  raised  on  a  Nation's  Tomb: 

The  gate  thai  Leads  i<»  the  great  all-home! 

Life-Pilgrims:  ye  who  weary  roam, 

While  listening  lor  the  welcome  home: — 

"  For  the  homestead  in  heaven — prepare,  prepare, 

The  Bride  of  the  Soil  is  waiting  there." 


M  \ 


BOOK     IX 


CITY    BY    THE     SEA 


The  Drifting  Tides  of  Human  Life. — Repose. — Home. — Poetry 
and  Corn. — Down  to  the  Earth-plane  of  the  primal 
Greek. 


OETH  E — the  genius  of  the  actual  in 
the  Old  World  fathomed  well  the 
heart  of  man  when  he  penned  this 
distich : — 


"Give  me  the  agitated  strife, — 
The  madness  of  the  World  of  Life  !  " 

We  are  not  now  speaking  of  the  Veteran  of  Ctjm- 
motgton — William  Cullbn  Bryant,  but  of  the  Veteran 
of  Eboracum,  the  American  emporium — W.  C.  Bryant. 
Owing  to  the  similarity  of  their  initials  they  are 
frequently  mistaken  for  one  and  the  same  person.  The 
world  of  Gotham  has  adopted  k*  W.  C.  B./1  while  the 
world  at  lar<re  claims  "William  Cullen."  The  world 
knows  the  Poet  ;  the  city  knows  the  Man  ;  but  com- 


206  CITY     BY     THE     SEA. 

paratively  few  individually  know  l>otli  man  and  poet. 
This  may  seem  paradoxical,  yet  it  Is  nevertheless  true: 
and  those  few  who  know  both  man  and  poet  subscribe 
to  these  lines  of  old  Goethe,  who  little  thought  when 
he  put  them  in  the  mouth  of  Faust  that  he  was  depict- 
ing a  dual  soul  of  the  New  Would. 

"Two  Souls,  alas!  are  lodged  within  one  breast, 
Which  struggle  there  for  undivided  reign. 

One  to  the  world,  with  obstinate  desire, 
And  closely-cleaving  organs,  still  adheres; 

Above  the  mist,  the  other  doth  aspire 

With  sacred  vehemence,  to  purer  spheres.'1 

Again  Goethe  says, — "It  is  natural  for  a  man  to 
regard  himself  as  the  object  of  creation,  and  to  think  of 
all  things  in  relation  to  himself  and  the  degree  they  can 
serve  and  be  useful  to  him."  If  this  Le  not  the  wisdom 
of  reality  we  know  not  what  is. 

That  which  the  present  hour  brings  forth,  alone, 
And  man  evolves — is  what  lie  calls  his  own. 

Regarding  the  world  in  this  light  as  the  arena  in 
which  man  is  to  act,  evolving  from  its  well-furnished 
magazine  both  the  idea]  and  the  practical,  both  the 
objective  and  the  subjective  of  his  nature,  one  cannot 
but  concede,  who  knows  Bryanl  both  as  man  and  poet, 

that  he  has  made  a  tolerable  good  U8e  of  the  world  he 
has  lived  in,  and  abused  it  as  little  as  most  who  have 
passed  their  seventh  decade.     This  of  the  past  and  the 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  207 

present.     Our  veteran  has  passed  the  grand  climacteric ; 
his  credit  is  good ;  we  will  take  the  future  upon  trust. 

Thou  hast  with  taste  and  truth  portrayed  the  bard, 
Who  hovers  in  the  shadowy  realm  of  dreams: — 
And  yet  reality,  it  seems  to  me, 
Hath  also  power  to  lure  him  and  enchain  ? 

Goethe's  Tasso. — Anna  Swanwick,   Trans. 

The  spot  where  a  man  in  whom  the  world  is  in- 
terested spends  the  greater  portion  of  his  time  cannot 
be  devoid  of  interest  to  the  true  thinker.  It  is  said 
that  about  as  many  visitors  call  at  the  East-India  House^ 
to  see  the  desk  and  ledger  to  which  poor  Charles 
Lamb  devoted  a  third  of  his  life,  as  call  at  his  home  and 
library. 

THE    ANTIQUARIAN. THE    LOCAL. 

"  After  the  Revolutionary  War,  without  specifying 
particular  dates,  except  to  say  that  the  period  extends 
to  the  year  1794  [the  reader  will  bear  in  mind  that  was 
the  memorable  year  in  which  the  afflicted  subject  of  our 
kaleidoscopic  sketches  was  born],  we  shall  give  the 
successive  measures  taken  in  relation  to  regulating  and 
paving  the  streets." — Valentine — The  Antiquarian 
of  Manhattan. 

We  commence  a  little  further  back.  Valentine's 
Manual  is  indispensable. 

"  1769.  Committee  to  regulate  Crown  Street  (now 
Liberty  Street).     Queen  Street  (Pearl)  paved,  from  Fly 


208  (ITV     BY     THE     SKA. 

Market  (Fulton)  to  Rutgers  (Monroe)  Street.  One 
Veteran  in  his  eighth  decade  says,  Fulton  used  to  be 
called  New   Street — fifty  years  ago.     Crown  (Liberty) 

Street  paved,  from  Broad  to  Greenwich  Street." 

Small  chance  for  the  Child  of  tiik  Forests  treading 
k*  moss-carpets  n  here  !  This  is  the  Key  of  the  Western 
World:  the  City  of  $24,  gold.  On  the  northwest 
corner  of  Liberty  and  Nassau, 

"  high  and  steep, 
From  battlement-wall  to  donjon-keep," 

rises  a  dusty,  mud-colored  edifice,  lettered  on  the 
broad  side  in  staring  whin — "Printing  Office  of  The 
Evening  Post.'1  The  pare,  laid  in  1794,  has  been 
several  times  renewed.  Now  they  over] date  with  iron.* 
Nothing  can  he  found  tough  enough  around  that  corner 
to  bear  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  Busy  Mart.  If  thou. 
Reader,  art  of  an  aspiring  mind  and  likest  to  climb, 
and  art  as  smart  as  our  veteran  in  his  Eighth  Decade, 
thou  mayst  enter  our  Poet-Journalist's  workshop. 

Behold.  This  is  the  Journalistic  lion:  and  he  looks 
fierce  enough. 

*  24th  Sept.,  1869. — Particularly  hard  is  this  *'  wear  and  tear  when 
bulletins  are  up  revealing  every  half-hour  the  changeful  price  of  gold. 
The  Genius  of  the  Hour  is  as  worthy  of  note  as  in  1 79  I.  "  The  Present  Will 
have  its  rightsl"  Of  a  monetary  crisis  never  to  he  forgotten.  The  24th 
of  September  will  long  bo  remembered  as  one  of  the  mosl  extraordinary 
days  of  financial  furore  that  has  happened  in  all  the  times  of  peace.  In 
good  will  with  all  the  world,  with  a  grand  and  wonderful  harvest  of  corn 
and  cotton,  and  all  the  natural  products  of  the  soil  pouring  in  and  actually 
glutting  our  markets  and  those  of  Europe,  and  with  bul  afainl  speck  of 
war  on  the  great  political  horizon,  a  gold  panic  breaks  out  in  Wall  Street. 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  209 


REBUS THE    BRAIN    AND    THE    HAND    OF    THE    EVENING    POST, 

The  Veteran  "  E.  P." — reigning  glorious — 

O'er  all  the  ills  of  Type  victorious  ! 

Our  "  Wilhelm  Meister  "  of  the  grand  ideal, 

Now  condescends  to  patronize  the  real:  \ 

Descends  unto  the  every-day  of  life, — 

The  bread-and-butter  struggle  and  the  strife  ! 

"  Thouo'h  forced  to  drudge  for  the  drears  of  men, 

And  scrawl  strange  words  with  the  barbarous  pen, 

And  mingle  among  the  jostling  crowd, 

Where  the  sons  of  strife  are  subtle  and  loud — " 

Arch  Caricature's  the  ray  that  flings 

A  brilliant  lio-ht  o'er  common  things  ! 

And  this  is   the    veteran    "W.    C.    Bryant," — not 
"  William  Cullen  !  "  but  the  Journalist. 


FORTY-FOUR    YEARS    AT    THE    DESK. THE    FRENCH    ON 

CARICATURE. 

The  French — masters  of  the  savoir-vivre  of  life  : 
the  trivial,  the  every-day,  the  commonplace ;  out  of 
which  they  manage  to  extract  more  aesthetics,  as  they 
manage  to  extract  more  perfume  from  flowers  than  any 
other  nation  in  the  world — aver,  and  not  without  reason, 
that  a  journalist  is  no  journalist  if  he  have  not  character 
enough  to  bear  caricature. 

Caricature,  according  to  the  French  definition,  is 
the  placing  of  the  real  upon  stilts.  It  is  the  accentu- 
ation and  emphasizing  of  the  obtrusive,  the  objective, 
the  tangible.     Poetry  idealizes.     Caricature  materializes. 

27 


210  CITY      BY     TIIK     SKA. 

Magnify  a  dominant  trait  and  you  get  caricature  with- 
out insulting  the  Bubject. 

We  have  been  told  that  our  caricature  of  the 
journalist  was  a  disgrace  to  a  Bryant  book!  J  low  so? 
What  have  we  done 3  We  gave  you  reality  for  front- 
ispiece. A  photograph  from  Life.  But  the  "down- 
towners" and  the  French  want  Bryanl  the  journalist  in 
a  journalistic  atmosphere.  Why,  the  French  would  Ik* 
the  first  to  laugh  at  you  if  you  depicted  the  journalist 
other  than  in  caricature.  Put  reality  on  stilts  !  The 
Journalist  is  all  brain.  The  Foreman  is  all  hand. 
How  is  this  disrespectful \  Here  is  the  ideal  and  the 
real  of  The  Evening  Post,  in  every-day  costume. 
Every-day  lite  is  not  to  he  despised  !  The  French, 
who  are  judges  of  appropriate  costume,  would  be 
charmed  with  the  propriety  of  those  Bhepherd's  plaid 
inexpressibles  which  the  journalist  has  the  good  taste  to 
wear  instead  of  black  broadcloth.  Broadcloth  for  the 
poet  !  But  the  journalist  must  he  prepared  for  niass- 
meetillgS  of  an  acre  of  men,  and  such  like  crowds  and 
barricades,  and  how  could  he  shake  hands  with  the  ina<s 
in  broadcloth  and  a  dress  coat  1  No:  in  the  office  the 
Editob  must  wear  an  economical  brown  or  pepper-and- 
salt  cloth  coat  like  other  "  business  men."  and  he  must 
don  Buch  u<'.*<r  a--  can  go  through  "  New  York  mud  "  and 
be  none  the  Worse  after  they  come  from  the  laundry, 
"good  a-  new,"  and  ready  for  another  u  mass-meeting." 
That'-  the  way  to  live.     Sou  think  that  veteran,  forty 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  *211 

years  at  the  desk,  is  going  to  ruin  a  sixty-dollar  suit  at 
the  mass-meeting  lie  is  going  to  attend  in  the  mud  \ 
Not  lie. 

But  return  we  to  our  "  Eventhtg  Post  caricature." 

The  pride  of  our  heart  and  the  gem  of  our  book, — 
which  idle  posterity  will  prize  beyond  price!  "Artist 
Nast,"  who  is  as  near  French  as  anything  (having  been 
born  in  "The  Bay  of  Biscay  0"),  has  rendered  himself 
candidate  for  the  next  gold  medal  at  the  next  Kq»>- 
sit  ion  <F  Industrie,  in  the  heart  of  la  beUe  France, — 
when  we  will  take  good  care  to  ask  Bkyaxt  tlie 
Journalist,  if  we  cannot  have  our  "Ocean  Regatta" 
printed  \  At  the  same  time  we  shall  enter  Artist 
Nast  in  T Exposition,  candidate  for  honors  in  having 
mastered  what  the  French  alone  think  they  can  master. 
"  Journalistic  Expression."  Examine  the  expression 
of  that  countenance  editorial :  k*  forty  years  at  the  desk." 
He  is  pondering  on  the  knotty  question  of  the  day.  and 
has  just  discovered  the  Lroad-axe  that  will  split  the 
knot  ! 

The    Journalistic    Pex. — Albatross    Quill. — Free    Trade. — 
The  Albatross  sweeps  the  Sea. 

The  Evexixo  Post  always  was  a  commercial 
paper. — and  is  now  the  favorite  organ  of  "  Commodore 
Low  and  the  Ocean  of  Commerce."  The  Albatross 
that  furnished  this  mammoth  editorial  pen  from  its 
wing-feather  was   shot    off  Cape  Horn,  and  the  feather 


212  C  IT  Y     B  Y     T  II  E     s  B  A  . 

brought    t<>    Bryant    the  journalist.      Symbol — "Free- 
dom of  the  Seas.'1 

*Tia  Baid  the  albatross  never  rests. —  BuFFON. 

"Where  the  fathomless  waves  in  magnificence  toss, 
Homeless  and  high  soars  the  wild  albatross — 
Unwearied,  undaunted,  unshrinking,  alone. 
The  ( ><  ban,  his  empire — the  Tempest, his  throne! 

When  the  terrible  whirlwind  raves  wild  o'er  the  surge, 
And  the  hurricane  howls  Oujt  the  mariner's  dirge, 
In  thy  glory  thou  spurnest  the  dark-heaving  sea, 

Proud  bird  of  the  OcEAN-WoRLD !    homeless  and  free." 

And  so,  after  all  it  would  seem  there  wore  talismans 
of  poetry  to  )>e  found  even  in  "the  busy  mart  I"     You 

scarce   know    the   value   of  natural  talismans  of  poetry 
till  imprisoned  in  dusty  brick  and  mortal-. 

EDITORIAL    ANECDOTE. 

"Tube    off    the    Gas;"    oh,    how   Bryant    the    Journalist 
starts  for  Europe, 

This  is  a  short  story, — yet  we  are  tired  of  telling  it. 
Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  lady  who  started  for 
Europe,  and,  in  her  haste,  forgot  to  turn  off  the  gas. 
The  pis  kept  burning  brilliantly  all  the  while,  on  pur- 
pose to  l<>ok  cheerful  and  be  already  lighted  when  she 
cnine  home.  But  the  Manhattan  Gas  Company,  ever 
wide-awake,  mel  the  lady's  husband  on  the  threshold 
and  welcomed  him  home  with  a  neat  little  Mil  of  some 
hundreds  of  dollars. 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  213 

This  was  not  very  cheerful  to  him.  Now,  when  our 
veteran  starts  for  Europe,  lie  always  turns  off  the  gas. 

Reader;  did  you  ever  happen  to  critically  and 
antiquarianly  and  idly  examine  the  veteran  E.  P.  ink- 
stand editorial  ?  Apparently  the  same  inkstand  from 
which  the  youthful  poet  at  ten  years  of  age  penned  the 
"  Embargo  " — which  was  a  first-class  squib  of  its  day — 
though  not  to  be  spoken  of  in  the  same  breath  with 
"  Thanatopsis."  How  many  generations  ago  the  "  Em- 
bargo "  flourished,  not  being  a  mathematical  genius  we 
cannot  reckon.  But  this  inkstand  is  ancient.  Attached 
to  it  by  a  bit  of  economical  twine  that  cost  nothing — is 
a  cork.  Idlers,  who  use  that  inkstand  are  tacitly 
reminded  to  put  in  the  coj*h.  This  cannot  be  said  of 
any  other  inkstand  in  the  establishment.* 

^ESTHETICS    OE    INKSTANDS. 

A  very  different  inkstand  is  this  from  the  mammoth 
reservoir  in  Avhich  Histoinan  Godwin  ducks  his  pen — 
like  a  voracious  shovel-nose  shark  darting  upon  his 
prey ;  different  is  it  from  the  be-spattered  plunge-bath 
used  by  the  Ex- Sailor  Nordhoff,  an  associate  journal- 
ist, who,  whenever  he  fishes  for  an  idea,  makes  a  splurge 
equal  to  a  man  overboard.     It  is  difficult  to  describe 

*  And  here  comes  the  fun.  While  the  Homestead-Book  was  getting 
illustrated,  two  E.  P.  inkstands  were  in  demand.  One  resembling  in 
contour  the  veritable  E.  P.  inkstand  was  borrowed,  gimlet-holes  bored  in  it 
and  a  cork  attached:  a  perfect  duplicate  to  the  one  on  the  journalistic 
table. 


L>14  CITY      BY     THE     SKA. 

tin*  editor-poet's  town-sanctum  inkstand;  nol  because 
it  is  such  an  articled  vertu,  but  because  it  is  90  com- 
mon. Weopine  this  is  the  reservoir  of  every-day  Ideas, 
There  are  no  salient  points  to  take  hold  of  It  is  the 
meresl  common  flat-round  turnip,  with  an  auger-hole 
bored  in  the  centre  to  represent  the  sun,  and  divers 
gimlet-holes,  like  planets,  surrounding  the  source  of 
illumination.* 

There  must  be  another  Bryant  inkstand.  Yet,  this 
old,  antediluvian  reservoir  of  writing  fluid  is  very  dear 
to  the  editor,  and  we  advise  all  who  wish  to  keep  in  his 
good  graces  to  praise  that  inkstand. 

But  we  started  to  tell  of  "Bryant  the  alitor"  about 
to  sail  for  Europe.  He  was  to  dine  that  evening, 
previously  to  embarking  onboard  the  Li  Periere  for 
la  Belle  France,  at  a  banquet  given  to  Commodore 
Low.  of  the  Ocean  of  Commerce. 

Idlers  called  to  bid  farewell  to  "  Bbyant  the  poet  " — 
expecting  of  course,  that  he  had  a  "'sonnet1'  already 
penned,  like  the  one  written  when  Cole  started  for 
Europe.  Not  a  bit  of  a  sonnet  was  there  penned. 
Bryant  the  poet  was  not  in.  But  Bryant  the  editor 
was  in,  malgre  tables-d'hote  and  oceans  of  commerce; 
There  he  was!  Writing  away  on  tin;  last  revise  of  the 
lasl  edition  at  the  last  moment. 


*  We  give  ft  life-portrait  of  this  precious  inkstand  as  tail-piece  of  ilns 
interesting  Book  IX.  ;  also  the  debris  «>t'  the  iilbatro&d  peu,  now  worn  to 
a  iii.it  Btump;  preaching  up  Free  Trade. 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  215 

After  looking  over  the  second  proof,  he  laid  the  slip 

of  paper  down  with  a  sigh  of  relief,  exclaiming,  "I  be- 
lieve all  is  done  !  " 

Then:  placing  the  stopper  deliberately  and  securely 

in  the  inkstand — so  there  would  be  plenty  ot'  ink  there 
when  he  returned,  he  took  his  "soft  felt'5  and  the  last 
edition,  and  departed  for  la  Belle  France,  la  Grande 
Exposition,  Count  Bismark's  political  fandango,  and  a 
day-dream  on  the  shores  of  Posilippo  or  Bomewhere 
else,  via  Commodore  Low  and  the  Ocean  of  Commerce. 

Pausing  awhile,  in  mute  reverie,  to  get  all  this 
settled  in  our  idle  pate,  and  try  to  realize  what  could 
have  been  the  emotions  that  should  have  caused  him  to 
exclaim  "  all  is  done  !"  we  reverently  took  tip  the  long 
strip  of  paper,  expecting  to  see  a  Bykoxic  "Adieu  to 
my  native  shore "  since  we  were  disappointed  in  our 
k*  sonnet." 

Nought  but  an  ordinary  political  squib.  The  last 
fire-cracker  in  the  package.  It  had  to  go  off.  Bkyaxt 
the  editor  had  turned  off'  the  gas. 

HUMOR. 

The  popular  impression  seems  to  be  that  the  author 
of  Thaxatopsis  can  never  laugh.  The  world  is  not  in- 
clined to  give  Bryant  credit  for  the  humorous;  and 
yet,  at  times  (in  conversation),  who  can  be  more 
excruciatingly  humorous  than  this  same  silver-haired 
veteran!     Espieglerie,  saroasnt,  satire,  humor,  badinage, 


1?  1(3  OITY     15  V     THE     ska. 

i  r\  ;  he  runs  the  gamut.  I>ut  he  lias  the  good  taste  to 
give  only  a  soupgan  of  the  caster  :  he  doesn't  give  us  the 
whole  pepper-box  at  once,  as  that  precious  son-in-law  of 
bis  doea  Godwim  has  no  discretion  with  the  pepper- 
box. Bon  ddl  He  Lets  fly  the  whole  caster  at  once. 
One  want  of  Godwin's  will  never  be  supplied  in  this 
world,  though  the  Indies  were  brought  to  his  threshold. 
Godwin  is  always  crying  "more  BpiceP  and  the  unpar- 
donable sin  Cerberus  never  can  forgiv* — is  Stupidity, 

Joi  rnaljstic    Etiquette. — Godwin   heard   from  through  the 
Voice  of  the  Press. 

The  Historian  Mr.  Parke  Godwin  has  been  In  France,  mostly  in 
Pari-,  for  several  months.  He  is  engaged  on  his  "History  of 
France."*  the  first  volume  of  which  Mas  published  seven  or  eight 
years  ago.  His  engagement  in  editorial  duties  on  the  Evening 
Post  during  the  war  prevented  his  attention  to  this  work)  which, 
we  believe,  he  intends  shall  be  his  chief  literary  monument.  We 
Learn  that  Mr.  Godwin  lias  nearly  completed  the  second  volume, 
and  lias  prepared  a  great  mass  of  material  For  the  third.  To 
Americans  especially  this  history  will  be  interesting.  Mr.  Godwin 
is,  in  the  philosophical  sense  of  the  word,  oneofthemosl  thorough 
and  uncompromising  of  Democrats,  and  his  history  will  be  the  first 
in  which  the  development  of  the  French  as  a  people,  and  not  as 
the  subjects  of  a  succession  of  dynasties,  will  be  traced  from  an 
American  point  of  view. —  Galaxy,  January,  i^»;(.». 

Among  the  new  American  works  expected  during  the  coming 
year,  none  will  be  looked  for  with  more  Interesl  than  Mr.  Parke 
Godwin's  "  History  of  Prance,"  the  second  and  third  volumes  of 
which  are  almost  ready  for  the  press.  We  are  also  informed 
ili.ii  Mr.  Godwin  intends  to  put  into  systematic  shape  his  views 
of  Political  Science,  and  intends  that  this  shrill  be  the  crowning 
work  of  his  life. — American  Booksellers'  Ghtid  .  dune  l,  i860, 


C  I  T  Y     BY     THE     SEA.  217 

"Telling  Tales  out  of  School!" — Bryant  the  Journalist's 

Introduction  to    "Thomas    Castaly,    Esg." — Interesting 
to  the  Veteran  Readers  of  the  Veteran  Evening  Post. 

Seldom  lias  any  thing  brought  the  lire  of  youth  to 
Bryant's  eve  with  merrier  play  than  the  resuscitation 
of  this  effusion.  "So  you  have  been  finding  some  fun 
in  The  Post  ?n  he  exclaims.  wC  This  is  charming — to 
remember  Halleck." 

"  And  Halleck — who  has  made  thy  roof, 
St.  Tammany  !   oblivion-proof — 
Thy  beer  illustrious,  and  thee 
A  belted  knight  of  chivalry  ; 
And  changed  thy  dome  of  painted  bricks 
And  porter  casks  and  politics  ?" 

This  from  the  staid  Evening  Post, — dating  from 
1801.  Who  would  believe  that  it  could  have  published 
such  a  production  \  And  now,  just  hear  Our  Veteran 
himself,  in  his  Eighth  Decade  ! 

The  Poet  tells  the  Secrets  of  the  Journalist. 

One  day  I  met  Halleck,  who  said  to  me:  "  I  have  an  epistle 
in  verse  from  an  old  gentleman  to  the  Recorder,  which,  if  you 
please,  I  will  send  to  you  for  the  Evening  Post.  It  is  all  in  my 
head,  and  you  shall  have  it  as  soon  as  I  have  written  it  out."  I 
should  mention  here  that  Halleck  was  in  the  habit  of  composing 
verses  without  the  aid  of  pen  and  ink,  keeping  them  in  his 
memory,  and  retouching  them  at  his  leisure.  In  due  time  the 
"  Epistle  to  the  Recorder,  by  Thomas  Castaly,  Esq.,"  came  to  hand, 
was  published  in  the  Evening  Post,  and  was  immediately  read  by 
the  whole  town.  It  seems  to  me  one  of  the  happiest  of  Halleck's 
satirical  poems. — Bryant's  Halleck  Memorial^  1869. 

2S 


218  CITY     i:V     THE     SEA 


CRUSHED    OUT. 


The  Practical  Budget,  containing  History  of  Ou 
Evening  Post  and  Bryant  the  journalist  on  journalism, 
is  laid  by  for  a  larger  edition— Avhen  a  small  paper-ware- 
bouse  is  to  be  chartered  and  divers  important  docu- 
ments are  to  be  registered:  such  as  the  Century  Com- 
memoration of  the  Poet's  Seventieth  Birthday,  etc.,  etc., 
all  of  which  belong  to  The  Homestead-Book. 

Meanwhile  Bryant  the  journalisi  lias  quietly 
clipped  out  of  the  workshop,  and  Shadow-Max,  from 
The  liealm  of  the  Heal,  ye1  grasping  the  ideal,  thus 
chants  : — 

"Pis  pleasant,  :is  the  man,  world-taught,  with    high,    determined 

heart, 

T<>  tread  life's  busy,  crowded  stage,  and  act  tir  allotted  part  ; 

When  fretted  with  the  noisy  scenes,  delighted  turn  to  home, 

And  feel  there  is  a  spirit  there  will  gladden  when  I  come  ; 

To  pore  with  wasted  midnight  lamp,  o'er  page  of  olden  time, 

o'er  mighty  Homer's  raptured  verse,  or  Dante's  wizard  rhyme, 

Or,  fancy-wrapt,  in  wildest  dream,  ask  the  wan  stars  to  tell, 

If  in   those   far   unfathomed    spheres,    the   changeless   soul    shall 

dwell. 

Anon. 

AOAIN    TO    OEDARMERE. 

Bui  foil  say  this  does  n<»t  come  under  the  symbolic 
firmament  of  the  City  by  the  Sea. 

Indeed  it  does.  Cedarmere,  though  the  shrine  <>t" 
the  Winds  and  Waves  is  l>nt  a  suburban  residence. 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  219 

Iii  what  light  our  Druid  looks  best.  Meet  hii 
under  one  of  the  scraggy  old  oaks  of  Roslyn  :  sturdy. 
gnarly  tree-giants ;  hoary  with  age  and  wrrestling  with 
the  blast — vine-garlanded  oaks  which,  though  not 
crowned  with  mistletoe,  are  yet  Druidical  enough  for 
jjoetry — just  meet  this  ancient  of  the  morning  of  our 
times  under  the  shade  of  oak-branches  and  you  will 
never  forget  The  New  World  Deuld.  But  you  know 
he  comes  from  the  Busy  Mart.  How  can  you  carry 
the  Druidical  thread  through  Gotham  { 

Reader  :  this  belongs  to  Hyponoia,  or  under-mean- 
ing; the  Ideal  and  the  Real;  the  Life  within  and  the 
Life  without.  Look  into  the  depths  of  thine  own  soul 
if  thou  wouldst  read  the  souls  of  others. 

POETRY. 

But  has  Bryant  in  the  whirling  waltz  of  the  busy 
world  preserved  his  wand  of  art  \ 

What  of  the  poet  \ 

Ay,  what  of  "  the  poet  ?"  Read  his  poem,  The  Poet, 
all  ye  soul-progressionalists  who  aim  at  mental  en- 
deavor, ponder  it  well!  Like  Schiller's  Artist  it 
applies  to  every  branch  of  art.  Take  from  us  dusty 
Gothamites  our  two  poems,  The  Battle-field  and  The 
Poet,  and  you  take  from  us  our  Bryant  !  With  us  he 
is  not  only  the  poet  of  the  forests :  the  mound-builder  ( 
the  nineteenth  century  who  has  erected  the  great  all- 
tomb  in  which  we  weary  children  of  earth  can  rest  from 


220  CITY     B  V     T  II  K     BE  A  . 

our  Labors,  bul  lie  is  with  us  the  ri<>m<  r  of  I)(al  Llfe, 
who  teaches  how  to  live  and  foster  soul-progression. 

But  what  of  the  classic  studenl  of  old  Williams? 
In  the  babel  of  modern  jargons  has  he  forgotten  the  lore 
of  tin •  -tarry  Greek?  once  liis  pride.  Has  Bryant  in 
hi-  eighth  decade  forgotten  his  Homer?* 

CORN. 
The  Harvest-bearing  Earth. — Bryant's  Horner. 

I  sow  the  seed  : 

(iod  give  it  speed 

For  me  and  those  who  need  ! 

Old  German  Invocation, 

The  Genius  of  Endeavor:  when  the  poet  sows  the 
nation  reap-!  We  give  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  tin 
Songofthi  Sower:  commencing  with  the  corn-thought  it 
culminates  with  the  mystic  symbol  of  the  bread  of  life. 
Header:  gel  the  poem  and  study  it.  The  poet  bows 
for  all  but  idlers.  He  puts  in  corn  for  the  on-coming 
myriad-. 

Mr.  Bryant  in  his  seventy-fifth  year  is  still  vigorously  at  work.  We 
are  privileged  to  copy  the  following  note  to  a  friend  in  this  city,  which 
gives  a  irl'mi  [»-c  of  the  poet  and  his  present  employment :  "  Cummington, 
Mass.,  August  8d,  1869:—!  am  very  well  the  climate  is  as  cool  as  I 
found  it  in  Scotland — hut  I  am,  every  now  and  then,  fagged  with  working 
on  Homer,  an<l  that  musl  he  my  excuse  for  not  writing.  W.  ('.  Bryant." 
Evidently  the  poet  is  hard  at  work.  Dryden  commenced  the  translation 
of  Homer  in   his  Bixty-eighth  year,  hut   he  never  completed  it.     Bryant, 

now    in  lii-  eighth  decade,  is  hard  at   work  on  the  last  nine  hooks.      We  hid 

him  God  speed.  -    \m>r.  Bookseller**  Guide,  Sept..  1889. 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  221 


THE    SONG    OF    THE    SOWER. 

The  maples  redden  in  the  sun ; 

In  autumn  gold  the  beeches  stand  ; 
Rest,  faithful  plough,  thy  work  is  done 

Upon  the  teeming  land. 
Bordered  with  trees  whose  gay  leaves  fly 
On  every  breath  that  sweeps  the  sky, 
The  fresh  dark  acres  furrowed  lie, 

And  ask  the  sower's  hand. 
Loose  the  tired  steer  and  let  him  go 
To  pasture  where  the  gentians  blow, 
And  we,  who  till  the  grateful  ground, 
Fling  we  the  golden  shower  around. 

Fling  wide  the  generous  grain ;  we  fling 
O'er  the  dark  mould  the  green  of  spring. 
For  thick  the  emerald  blades  shall  grow, 
When  first  the  March  winds  melt  the  snow, 
And  to  the  sleeping  flowers,  below, 

The  early  bluebirds  sing. 
Fling  wide  the  grain  ;  we  give  the  fields 

The  ears  that  nod  in  summer's  gale, 
The  shining  stems  that  summer  gilds, 

The  harvest  that  o'erflows  the  vale, 
And  swells,  an  amber  sea,  between 
The  full-leaved  woods,  its  shores  of  green. 
Hark  !  from  the  murmuring  clods  I  hear 
Glad  voices  of  the  coming  year; 
The  song  of  him  who  binds  the  grain, 
The  shout  of  those  that  load  the  wain, 
And  from  the  distant  grange  there  comes 

The  clatter  of  the  thresher's  flail, 
And  steadily  the  millstone  hums 

Down  in  the  willowy  vale. 


CIT  V     B  V     T  II  K     6  E  A  . 

Strew  silently  the  fruitful  seed, 

A.8  softly  o'er  the  tilth  ye  tread, 
For  hands  that  delicately  knead 

The  consecrated  bread. 
The  mystic  loaf  that  crowns  the  board, 
When,  round  the  table  of  their  Lord, 

Within  a  thousand  temples  set, 
In  memory  of  the  hitter  death 
Of  Him  who  taught  at  Nazareth, 

His  followers  arc  met, 
And  thoughtful  eyes  with  tears  are  wet, 

A-  of  the  Holy  One  they  think. 

The  glory  of  whose  rising,  yel 
.Makes  bright  the  grave's  mysterious  brink. 


Brethren,  the  sower's  task  is  done. 

The  seed  is  in  its  winter  bed. 

Now  let  the  dark-brown  mould  be  spread, 

To  hide  it    from   the  sun. 
And  leave  it  to  the  kindly  care 
Of  the  still  earth  and  brooding  air. 
As  when  the  mother,  from  her  breast, 
Lays  the   hushed  babe  apart  to  rest. 
And  shades  its  eyes,  and  waits  to  see 

How  sweet  its  waking  smile  will  be. 


The  Old  Story   of  Ages. — Wisdom   and  Cosy. — Poetry  and 
Bread. — The  Corn-Festival  op-  tin:  New  World. 

When  one  begins  to  write  about  Bryant  and 
Nature,  the  realm  i>  bo  Greek,  ><>  rich,  bo  vast,  bo  cos- 
mopolitan, one  knows  n»>t  when  ami  where  to  stop. 
The  Greek  was  great  because  he  was  true  to  Nature. 
Greek  aesthetics  1i<»1<1  true  in  tin*  nineteenth  century. 


CITY     BY     THE     SEA.  223 

With  you,  the  first  blooms  of  the    spring  began, 
Awakening  nature  in  the  soul  of  man  : — 
With  you  fulfilled,  when  nature  seeks  repose, 
Autumn's  exulting  harvests  ripely  close. 

Schiller. 

Our  poet's  birth-month  is  also  the  month  of  our 
National  Thanksgiving.  A  harvest  equal  to  that  in  the 
Vale  of  the  Shenandoah,  which  inspired  Bryant's  Corn- 
Thought  Tribute  to  Dante,  threatens  us. 

When  the  Poet  sows  the  Nation  reaps !  Are  you 
all  seated  round  the  Homestead  Board  in  reverential 
awe?  Know  you  what  Thanksgiving  means?  Back 
of  the  Puritan  Thanksgiving :  back  of  the  English 
Harvest-Home  :  back  of  the  Teuton  Earth- Festival : 
back  of  the  Roman  Corn-Festival :  back  of  the  Greek 
Fleusinian  Mysteries  is  the  Feast  of  Sheaves  of  the 
Hebrew  J  ah  ! 

The  orient  seer  awoke  the  strain 

When  Israel's  line  began  : 
Thanksgiving  on  the  eastern  main, 
Thanksgiving  for  the  golden  grain, 

The  Harvest-Home  of  Man  ! 

The  Reapers  of  ages  have  joined  in  our  National 
Chorus  :  the  refrain  of  the  Harvest-Home  of  the  New 
World.  Our  modern  Thanksgnyina;  is  nought  but  a 
modern  version  of  the  old  Hebrew  Feast  of  Sheaves : 
and  the  Jews  thus  recognize  it.  The  Hebrew  Jah  was 
the  God  of  Homesteads. 


224 


<    I  r  Y     1 1  V     T  1 1  E     s  E  A 


Eomestead-Booke  carry  the  clue  of  the  antique — 
Tin:  Traditionary   Blessing! 

Theocratic  Patriarch  of  the  Earth-Grand-Homestead  ! 
Tliou  who  establishing  thine  house  didst  ordain  tin* 
(estiva]  of  the  Feasl  of  Sheaves  in  the  Orient!  Thou 
who,  bidding  man  seek  wisdom,  the  bread  of  the 
better  life,  yet  didst  provide  corn  and  sustenance  fchal 
the  body  might  not  perish, — shower  thy  blessings  to 
the  remotest  generation  on  thy  seer-Patriarch  of  this 
our  New  World!  A  frail  mortal  of  our  race,  who 
through  the  intricate  relations  of  dual  life  lias  sustained 
his  integrity.  Grant  to  him  and  liis  and  all  who  sym- 
bolically surround  liis  board  the  heirloom  of  wisdom 
ami  the  1  »read  of  contentment.  Thou  who  didst  ordain 
the  Feast  of  Sheaves  in  the  Old  World  accept  the 
symbolism  of  the  Feast  of  Sheaves  of  the  New. 
A.  M.  5629 — Hebrew  Calendar, 


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